Unnamed: 0 int64 | title string | text string | label int64 |
|---|---|---|---|
8,400 | World powers push Saudis, Iran to stop interfering in Lebanon | PARIS (Reuters) - World powers attempted to shore up Lebanon s stability on Friday by pushing Saudi Arabia and Iran to stop interfering in its politics and urging Hezbollah to rein in its regional activities. Lebanon plunged into crisis on Nov. 4 when Saad al-Hariri resigned as prime minister while he was in Saudi Arabia, saying he feared assassination and criticizing the Saudis regional arch-rival Iran along with its Lebanese ally Hezbollah. After international pressure and negotiations between Lebanese political factions, he rescinded his resignation on Tuesday and his coalition government, which includes Hezbollah, reaffirmed a state policy of staying out of conflicts in Arab states. The International Lebanon Support Group (GIS), a body that includes the five members of the U.N. Security Council Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States met in Paris on Friday to try to reinforce Hariri s hand to prevent a new escalation. Disassociation applies to everyone - inside and outside, Jean-Yves Le Drian said at a news conference with Hariri after the meeting. These principles were reaffirmed this morning, he said, later referring specifically to both Iran and Saudi Arabia. Without naming Hezbollah, he urged all sides not to import regional tensions into Lebanon. Hariri said that any breach of the policy of non-interference would drag Lebanon back into the danger zone . The disassociation policy is in the overarching interest of Lebanon, he said. The meeting had earlier been opened by President Emmanuel Macron. He has invested political capital in the crisis and leveraged France s close relations with both Lebanon and Saudi Arabia to secure a deal that saw Hariri travel to Paris and open the door to a resolution of the crisis last month. (The Group) calls upon all Lebanese parties to implement this tangible policy of disassociation from and non-interference in external conflicts, as an important priority, the final communique read. Saudi concern over the influence wielded by Shi ite Muslim Iran and Hezbollah in other Arab states had been widely seen as the root cause of the crisis, which raised fears for Lebanon s economic and political stability. The Lebanese policy of dissociation was declared in 2012 to keep the deeply divided state out of regional conflicts such as the civil war in neighboring Syria. Despite the policy, Hezbollah is heavily involved there, sending thousands of fighters to help Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. He said that while the diplomatic language for the final declaration would not single out any party, the message was that Saudi Arabia and Iran should not influence Lebanese politics and that Hezbollah should rein in its regional activities. Friday s meeting isn t anti-Saudi or anti-Iranian, it s pro-Lebanon, a senior French diplomat said before the meeting. Highlighting the difficulties of upholding such a policy, Hezbollah backed calls on Thursday for a new Palestinian uprising in reaction to U.S. President Donald Trump s recognition of disputed Jerusalem as Israel s capital. The stability of Lebanon may seem like a small miracle given the many conflicts that destabilize the region, but it is maintained at the cost of sacrifice, dialogue and compromise, Hariri said earlier alongside Macron. Those attending Friday s meeting also committed to strengthening the Lebanese army through a conference in Rome and to support a meeting in Brussels also in 2018 to discuss how to help Lebanon cope with the 1.4 million refugees it hosts. A separate donor conference will also take place in March in Paris to boost the country s economy with a view to stimulating investments once expected legislative elections take place in May. | 1 |
8,401 | Trump’s Lawyer’s Response Was Riddled With Errors; He Even Misspelled ‘President’ | Donald Trump hired himself a personal lawyer to represent him in the Russia investigation. Marc Kasowitz, though, isn t a criminal attorney or a constitutional attorney. He s a corporate and real estate attorney, and if his response to former FBI head James Comey s testimony on Thursday is any indication, he s not good with details. The response is riddled with errors he (or his staff) even misspelled the word President. While the statement is a pretty standard attempt to paint a rosy picture on Comey s testimony (it was released before the testimony), but it s difficult to take seriously.The letter begins, I am Marc Kasowitz, Predisent Trump s personal lawyer. Clearly Kasowitz isn t familiar with spellcheck, because mine really fought that misspelling.The letter also misspells the name of National Intelligence Director Dan Coats. It was spelled Coates. Some sentences had extra periods.Here s the full letter:Twitter had a field day with the errors:TRUMP S LAWYER: If I say the *preDISent* did nothing wrong I m technically not lying. pic.twitter.com/vP7ZFzZvS2 Jesse McLaren (@McJesse) June 8, 2017Aha, the loophole. He doesn t represent President Trump, he represents Predisent Trump. https://t.co/MAdEbOEZlJ Josh Barro (@jbarro) June 8, 2017How can people believe #JamesComey over Predisent Trump? Need I remind you that the Bowling Green Massacre happened under Comey s watch Marie Connor (@thistallawkgirl) June 8, 2017 predisent Trump I admire the commitment of all Trump people to typos. https://t.co/S53AVLnWtu Jeet Heer (@HeerJeet) June 8, 2017 Predisent is the latin conjugate for President david trust me i am both a doctor and a lawyer pic.twitter.com/kiOeJAIcro darth: (@darth) June 8, 2017Or maybe he did use spellcheck.Even spell check thinks Donald Trump isn t fit to serve as President. #Predisent pic.twitter.com/tbRLHbVn14 Marie Connor (@thistallawkgirl) June 8, 2017Even 538 s Nate Silver mocked him:This is the moment Donald Trump became predisent. Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) June 8, 2017In the big picture, do a few typos matter? Not really, but this is emblematic of an administration that s careless and sloppy. This is anything but presidential, but maybe it s Predisential.Featured image via Pool/Getty Images | 0 |
8,402 | U.S. bill would ban American tourist travel to North Korea | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican and Democratic U.S. congressmen introduced a bill on Thursday that would ban Americans from traveling to North Korea as tourists and require them to obtain special permission for other types of visits. Democrat Adam Schiff and Republican Joe Wilson said their proposed North Korea Travel Control Act followed the detention of at least 17 Americans in North Korea in the past decade. North Korea has a record of using detained Americans to extract high-profile visits from the United States, with which it has no formal diplomatic relations. “With increased tensions in North Korea, the danger that Americans will be detained for political reasons is greater than ever,” the congressmen said in a statement. Given North Korea’s “demonstrated willingness to use American visitors as bargaining chips to extract high level meetings or concessions, it is appropriate for the United States to take steps to control travel to a nation that poses a real and present danger to American interests,” they said. Four Americans are being held in North Korea as diplomatic tensions with Washington have heightened. Two of them, detained in the past month, are affiliated with a private university in the North Korean capital. A congressional source said the bill would ban tourist travel by Americans outright, while any other visits would require a special license from the Treasury Department, which is enforcing a wide range of sanctions on North Korea over its nuclear and missile programs. North Korea this month asserted its sovereign right to “ruthlessly punish” U.S. citizens it has detained for crimes against the government. It said calling such arrests bargaining ploys was “pure ignorance.” North Korea said on May 7 it had detained Kim Hake Song, who worked for the Pyongyang University of Science and Technology, on suspicion of “hostile acts.” Another American, Kim Sang Dok, who was associated with the same school, was detained in late April on the same charge. The other two Americans are Otto Warmbier, a 22-year-old student detained in January 2016 and sentenced to 15 years hard labor for attempting to steal a propaganda banner, and Kim Dong Chul, a 62-year-old Korean-American missionary. Kim was sentenced to 10 years hard labor for subversion last year. | 1 |
8,403 | Iowa Racist: I Beat That Man Because I’m ‘Allergic To Black People’ (VIDEO) | With the rise of Donald Trump, America s racists are coming out of the woodwork in droves. They are also becoming increasingly violent. Yet another incident of racist violence comes to us from Iowa City, Iowa, where a man wearing a surgical mask attacked a black man. Authorities were called to the scene due to a fight, only to find out it was a racist attack.The attacker, Andy Benavidez, 47, told police that the attack was racially motivated. Benavidez hurled racist epithets at his victim, all the while physically assaulting him. The most bizarre part of all was, of course, the surgical mask, and the suspect informed police that the reason for his wearing it was so that he wouldn t be contaminated by black people germs.Benavidez is facing assault charges for his crime, and thanks to the fact that he has admitted that he did it because he is a flaming racist, a hate crime charge will be attached as well.This sort of thing will only get worse as people are given cause to spew their hatred and lash out in violence. It will only be a matter of time before this is a regular and even expected occurrence.Watch a local news report on the attack below:Featured image via video screen capture from CBS 2 Iowa | 0 |
8,404 | HOW REPUBLICAN LEADERS Are Willing To Sacrifice White House To STOP TRUMP | Gut-wrenching behavior from a party who hasn t been challenged for the betrayal of their party in decades. You don t even have to be a fan of Trump s to find this story disturbing on so many levels There are so many intriguing twists in this NYT story about behind-the-scenes efforts to stop Trump that you ll save time by skipping this post and reading it yourself. This is the showstopper, though:While still hopeful that Mr. Rubio might prevail, Mr. McConnell has begun preparing senators for the prospect of a Trump nomination, assuring them that, if it threatened to harm them in the general election, they could run negative ads about Mr. Trump to create space between him and Republican senators seeking re-election. Mr. McConnell has raised the possibility of treating Mr. Trump s loss as a given and describing a Republican Senate to voters as a necessary check on a President Hillary Clinton, according to senators at the lunches.He has reminded colleagues of his own 1996 re-election campaign, when he won comfortably amid President Bill Clinton s easy re-election. Of Mr. Trump, Mr. McConnell has said, We ll drop him like a hot rock, according to his colleagues. I don t know where to begin. For starters, the fact that McConnell thinks Trump losing to Hillary is a given explains a lot about why Republicans got caught so flat-footed by Trump in the primary. It s not a given. He may lose but he won t get blown out. If we ve learned nothing else over the eight years, we ve learned that there s no such thing as an easy race for Hillary Clinton. Trump will start the campaign as an underdog with poisonous favorables but he s superb at staying on offense, as we ve seen over the past 36 hours and he ll have endless attacks to pursue against Hillary to fuel the offensive. His alpha-male shtick may get a long look from centrist Democrats too, especially men who are worried about having a woman commander-in-chief for whatever reason.Beyond that, let me blow your minds by gently countering some bedrock conservative conventional wisdom: The media will not cut off Trump s insta-access to their airwaves the day after he clinches the nomination in the name of helping Hillary. The idea that they will is treated as the most elementary fact among righties I know, but there s nothing the media loves more than a circus and Trump is just one big orange-y circus. Their coverage will turn more skeptical, surely, and he might not get quite the same amount of anytime-day-or-night call-in opportunities that he has now, but you re kidding yourself if you think Joe Scarborough will turn down a request from the Republican nominee to spend an hour of airtime gladhanding him. Trump is the ultimate shiny object. He delivers ratings. Hillary will need to figure out a way to counter that.So no, it s not a given that he ll lose. But even if it were, how would an incumbent GOP senator whose seat is up benefit from alienating Trump fans by running attack ads against the party s own nominee? That s insane. Via: Hot Air | 0 |
8,405 | Pope urges decisive measures for Myanmar refugees, avoids 'Rohingya' | DHAKA (Reuters) - Pope Francis called on Thursday for decisive measures to resolve the political reasons that caused mostly Muslim refugees in Myanmar to flee to Bangladesh and urged countries to help the Dhaka government deal with the crisis. However, just as on the first leg of his trip, in Myanmar, he did not use the word Rohingya to describe the refugees, which is contested by the Yangon government and military. In a speech before Bangladeshi President Abdul Hamid and diplomats hours after arriving under heavy security in Dhaka, the chaotic and dusty capital of 14 million people, Francis instead spoke of refugees from Rakhine State . In his speech, Francis, who used the term Rohingya twice this year in appeals from the Vatican, praised impoverished Bangladesh s spirit of generosity and solidarity in helping a massive influx of refugees from Rakhine State . The exodus of some 625,000 Muslim Rohingya people from Rakhine state to the southern tip of Bangladesh was sparked by a military crackdown in response to Rohingya militant attacks on an army base and police posts on Aug. 25. Scores of Rohingya villages were burnt to the ground, and refugees arriving in Bangladesh told of killings and rapes. The United States has said the campaign by mainly Buddhist Myanmar s military included horrendous atrocities aimed at ethnic cleansing . The military denies the accusations. None of us can fail to be aware of the gravity of the situation, the immense toll of human suffering involved, and the precarious living conditions of so many of our brothers and sisters, a majority of whom are women and children, crowded in the refugee camps, Francis said at the presidential palace. It is imperative that the international community take decisive measures to address this grave crisis, not only by working to resolve the political issues that have led to the mass displacement of people, but also by offering immediate material assistance to Bangladesh in its effort to respond effectively to urgent human needs. Even though his calls for justice, human rights and respect in Myanmar were widely seen as applicable to the Rohingya, who are not recognized as Myanmar citizens or as members of a distinct ethnicity, rights groups such as Amnesty International said they were disappointed he did not defend them by name. In studiously avoiding the highly charged term, the pope has so far followed the advice of church officials in Myanmar, who feared it could set off a diplomatic incident and turn Myanmar s military and government against minority Christians. Francis is due to meet a group of Rohingya refugees in Dhaka on Friday. In his address to the pope, the president of Bangladesh, which is predominantly Muslim, used the term Rohingya several times and accused the Myanmar army of committing ruthless atrocities . He called for a safe, sustainable and dignified return of the refugees to their homes. Myanmar and Bangladesh signed an accord last week on terms for the return of Rohingya, though rights groups are skeptical Myanmar will follow through on the deal and have called for independent observers for any repatriation. There are concerns about protection for Rohingya from further violence if and when they go home, and about a path to resolving their legal status - most are stateless - and whether they would be allowed to return to their old homes. The pope s visit to the South Asian country unfolded under heavy security. While Francis stuck to his custom of using a simple car, he was escorted by many armored military and police vehicles. The country was shocked on July 1, 2016, when gunmen stormed a caf in Dhaka s upscale Gulshan neighborhood, killing 22 people, most of them foreigners, in an overnight siege. Islamic State militants claimed responsibility. | 1 |
8,406 | Putin, Trump to discuss North Korea on Tuesday: IFX cites Kremlin aide | MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump will discuss North Korea when they hold a telephone conversation on Tuesday, Interfax news agency cited Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov as saying. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said earlier on Tuesday that the conversation would focus on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad s visit to Russia which he made on Monday. | 1 |
8,407 | ICAN leader 'delighted' with Nobel Peace Prize: Nobel committee | OSLO (Reuters) - The leader of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, Beatrice Fihn, was delighted with the news that the grassroots organization had been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, the awards committee s head, Berit Reiss-Andersen, told a news conference. | 1 |
8,408 | New Book Reveals HILLARY’S ANTI-SEMITIC SIDE: Blamed Bill’s Campaign Manager For Losing Congressional Race…Called Him A “F*cking Jew B*stard” | Hillary doesn t recall saying it, but Bill s campaign manager, Paul Fray clearly remembers her saying it. Just another Hillary lie what different does it make? Hillary Clinton is fighting a rearguard action to avoid further damage to her standing with the crucial Jewish vote in her campaign for a Senate seat after a claim that she once used an ethnic insult against one of Bill Clinton s aides.A book out today claims that 26 years ago she called Paul Fray, her husband s campaign manager at the time, a fucking Jew bastard .Mrs Clinton denied the allegation and pressed the president into supporting her, but the author, Jerry Oppenheimer, said: Three witnesses have now publicly acknowledged that she said it. I have never said anything like that, ever, Mrs Clinton said. I have in the past certainly, you know maybe, called somebody a name. But I have never used an ethnic, racial, anti-Semitic, bigoted, discriminatory, prejudiced, accusation against anybody. I ve never done it. I ve never thought it. Mr Clinton, who was trying to bring about a Middle East peace deal at Camp David, backed her up. I was there on election night in 1974 and the charge is simply not true, he said. She might have called him a bastard, I wouldn t rule that out. She s never claimed that she was pure on profanity. But I ve never heard her tell a joke with an ethnic connotation. She s so fanatic about it. It s not in her. Referring to a vast rightwing conspiracy in previous elections, he said: This is part of a pattern. They couldn t defeat me politically and they can t defeat her politically so they go after us personally. Accounts of the dispute on election night 1974, when Mr Clinton failed to win a congressional seat representing Arkansas, have appeared before without the ethnic insult.Those present at the inquest into the defeat were Mr Clinton, his then-girlfriend Hillary, his campaign manager Paul Fray, and Mr Fray s wife, Mary Lee. Neill McDonald, a campaign worker, was just outside the room and claims to have heard everything.The Frays and Mr McDonald are the three witnesses on whom Mr Oppenheimer, a former reporter on the National Inquirer tabloid, relies for the passage in his book State of a Union: Inside the Complex Marriage of Bill and Hillary Clinton.Mr Fray, 57, said yesterday: I was a little defensive about it. I looked to the floor thinking How do I respond? I didn t mind being called a son-of-a-bitch, but when it came to attacking my culture, that s a whole nother ballgame. You ve got to understand it was the heat of the moment. We knew we had lost. It was a case of people lashing out at one another and it just got to that point. Mr Fray is actually a Southern Baptist but says that he is one-eighth Jewish through his great-grandfather.Mrs Fray said that her husband s recollection of the meeting, which lasted about an hour, was accurate. Mr McDonald said: I don t know what provoked it or what. I just remember that one little comment. Via: The Guardian | 0 |
8,409 | Spot On! Lou Dobbs: President Took RINO Paul Ryan to the Woodshed [Video] | Lou Dobbs is spot on with his assessment of what President Trump did in making a debt-ceiling deal with Democrats:Lou Dobbs | President took RINO Paul Ryan to the woodshed by making debt-ceiling deal with Democrats pic.twitter.com/cYlYziOjfG Journalism Is Dead (@TheDailyBail) September 7, 2017President Trump knows he s dealing with a RINO in Paul Ryan and was ready to call him out on it. Trump went around Ryan and McConnell to make a deal to get funds to the hurricane victims in Texas. Ryan tried to grandstand on it but Trump wasn t having any of Ryan s BS so he met with party leaders and made a deal right in from of the RINO leaders of the GOP. The art of the deal in action Trump also pushes the issue on the debt limit to right before the election in 3 months brilliant! SHOCKING PIVOT BY POTUS:He turned on Republican leaders in Congress when he caved to Democrats demands to raise the debt limit and fund the government for three months, setting up a brutal year-end fiscal cliff. The move shocked everyone, as top White House officials and GOP leaders had been gearing up to raise the debt ceiling through the 2018 midterm election, looking to pass legislation as soon as Friday.But even after Mnuchin, Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell pushed back on the Democratic demands in the meeting, Trump agreed to the three-month deal that will also head off the possibility of a government shutdown until mid-December.During the meeting, Ryan sharply criticized the Democratic proposal, a source familiar with the exchange said. But Schumer reminded him that Ryan had supported short-term increases in the past intended to help create bipartisan deals in 2013.So after Democrats rejected GOP proposals to raise the debt ceiling for 18 months, and then six months Trump endorsed Schumer s three-month pitch.The Treasury Department will likely be able to buy more time for Congress on the debt limit into 2018. But the Wednesday deal still means Congress will have to raise the debt ceiling, negotiate a massive trillion-dollar spending bill, and potentially hash out a deal on immigration all at once or in quick succession.Trump s statement on the deal:President Trump: We had a great meeting with Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi and the whole Republican leadership group. pic.twitter.com/ArHkodzr92 CSPAN (@cspan) September 6, 2017 | 0 |
8,410 | IS RESIGNATION OF FBI DIRECTOR IMMINENT, As Obama Appears To Be Protecting Hillary From Prosecution? | FBI insiders are spreading the word, Hillary Clinton deliberately broke the law and charges are warranted. However, there is little confidence the Obama administration will actually indict her.Hillary Clinton broke the law, knowingly sending and receiving classified information on a private server, according to FBI insiders. However, this isn t the right question. Instead, the right question is, why are FBI insiders spreading rumors?The answer is because they do not think the political establishment will play its role in any case, leaving Hillary Clinton to get away with thumbing her nose at the law. Via: Catholic OnlineAccording to the Daily Mail Any evidence that the FBI uncovered has still not been made public.The government says no final decision has been made, however the case is clearly progressing as Clinton aide Bryan Pagliano, who worked on her private server, was granted immunity by the Justice Department earlier this month. You don t start granting people close to Clinton immunity unless you are seriously looking at charges against your target, one of Gasparino s sources said.Clinton has publicly said that using a private email account attached to a homebrew server was a mistake. Mainly because it s caused all this uproar and commotion. As FBI director, however, Comey can only recommend charges to the Justice Department, led by Obama appointee, Attorney General Loretta Lynch.Insiders told the New York Post that evidence would have to be overwhelming for Comey to make such recommendations and for Obama s Justice Department to pursue them.But agents also suggest that the investigation is solid enough for Comey to quit if the Justice Department doesn t listen to him on the matter of Clinton.Barack Obama s decision to publicly ask donors to support Hillary speaks volumes about his decision to back her as the Democrat Party s Presidential candidate. Barack s former AG, Eric Holder s endorsement of Hillary Clinton is further proof that Hillary has the full backing of this corrupt administration:Eric Holder I think what people have to understand is that what we have to do is protect the Obama legacy. We ve made really substantial progress in the last eight years it ll be eight years at the end of 2016 and the question is who is best situated to protect that legacy and not let the progress that we have made get rolled back. And there is no question that there are going to be attempts to roll back the Affordable Care Act, they sent [President Obama] a bill the week before last that he had to veto. There will certainly be efforts to counter the executive actions that he s taken on immigration issues, when it comes to gun safety issues and his foreign policy. You need somebody who s got a record on those issues that s consistent with the positions that the president took, and Hillary Clinton is that person, there s no question. They are in lockstep when it comes to gun safety issues. Sen. [Bernie] Sanders, quite frankly, is not. So to the extent that people are a bit of a nostalgic, wistful feeling, I think that ought to be converted into a concern for the future and for the preservation of all the great work that President Obama and his administration did. Here s the only clear record that Hillary has to show for her decades of public service : | 0 |
8,411 | U.N. chief condemns North Korea missile launch | NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.N. Secretary-General Ant nio Guterres condemned North Korea s missile launch over Japan on Friday and said he would discuss the situation at the United Nations General Assembly s gathering next week. The Secretary-General calls on the DPRK leadership to cease further testing, comply with the relevant Security Council resolutions, and allow space to explore the resumption of sincere dialogue on denuclearization, Guterres said in a statement, adding that he would discuss it with all concerned parties in the margins of the upcoming U.N. General Assembly. (This story corrects first paragraph to make clear Guterres said he will discuss North Korea, not entire U.N.) | 1 |
8,412 | BOMBSHELL: FBI REVEALS LYING OBAMA Used A Pseudonym To E-mail Clinton…Refuses To Release E-mails | Obama told CBS News March 7, 2015 that he did not know about Clinton s private email while she was his secretary of state from Jan. 21, 2009 to Feb. 1, 2013.Q: Mr. President, when did you first learn that Hillary Clinton used an email system outside the U.S. government for official business while she was secretary of state?Obama: The same time everybody else learned it through news reports.President Barack Obama used a pseudonym in email communications with Hillary Clinton and others, according to FBI records made public Friday.The disclosure came as the FBI released its second batch of documents from its investigation into Clinton s private email server during her tenure as secretary of state.The 189 pages the bureau released includes interviews with some of Clinton s closest aides, such as Huma Abedin and Cheryl Mills; senior State Department officials; and even Marcel Lazar, better known as the Romanian hacker Guccifer. In an April 5, 2016 interview with the FBI, Abedin was shown an email exchange between Clinton and Obama, but the longtime Clinton aide did not recognize the name of the sender. Once informed that the sender s name is believed to be pseudonym used by the president, Abedin exclaimed: How is this not classified?' the report says. Abedin then expressed her amazement at the president s use of a pseudonym and asked if she could have a copy of the email. The State Department has refused to make public that and other emails Clinton exchanged with Obama. Lawyers have cited the presidential communications privilege, a variation of executive privilege, in order to withhold the messages under the Freedom of Information Act. The report doesn t provide more details on the contents of that particular email exchange, but says it took place on June 28, 2012, and had the subject line: Re: Congratulations. It may refer to the Supreme Court s ruling that day upholding a key portion of the Obamacare law.Read more: Politico | 0 |
8,413 | Resignation Letter To Donald Trump Has Secret Message To Resistance | Ever since Donald Trump failed his test of moral leadership following the Nazi/white Supremacist rally in Charlottesville, VA, his administration has been bleeding.First, his business council collapsed when business leader after business leader said they wanted no part in Trump s sympathy with Nazis. The same is now happening with his Committee on the Arts and Humanities as 16 members of the group sent Trump a resignation letter that was just perfect if you re a member of the resistance.Here is a part of the resignation letter: Reproach and censure in the strongest possible terms are necessary following your support of the hate groups and terrorists who killed and injured fellow Americans in Charlottesville. The false equivalencies you push cannot stand. The Administrations refusal to quickly and unequivocally condemn the cancer of hatred only further emboldens those who wish America ill. We cannot sit idly by, the way your West Wing advisors have, without speaking out against your words and actions. We are members of the Presidents Committee on the Arts and Humanities (PCAH). The Committee was created in 1982 under President Reagan to advise the White House on cultural issues. We were hopeful that continuing to serve in the PCAH would allow us to focus on the important work the committee does with your federal partners in the arts and humanities for all Americans. Effective immediately, please accept our resignation Source: ViceHere s the full letter, signed by 16 members, including artist Chuck Close, author Jhumpa Lahiri, architect Thom Mayne and Jersey Boys actor John Lloyd Young and Minnesota Congressman Richard Cohen:JUST IN: In letter to Pres. Trump, a mass resignation from the presidential arts and humanities committee. pic.twitter.com/4Mor0vEoBK NBC Nightly News (@NBCNightlyNews) August 18, 2017Do you see it? Probably not. Look at the first letter of each paragraph R-E-S-I-S-T.pic.twitter.com/mdNpjI35hy Hesiod Theogeny (@Hesiod2k11) August 18, 2017Naturally, Twitter had their opinions.pic.twitter.com/TxjAq6UxFg techiethomas (@techiethomas) August 18, 2017Not sure if would have gotten the irony of it. Trump s not wise or deep, he s just along for the ride. Marie (@SCMilitarybrat) August 18, 2017The FIRST letter of the FIRST word in each paragraph spells RESIST:Reproach Elevating Speaking Ignoring Supremacy Thank youSo cool! ? https://t.co/aCwtX9kip1 Ricky Davila (@TheRickyDavila) August 18, 2017The President s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities was started under the Reagan administration in 1982.PCAH works directly with the three primary cultural agencies National Endowment for the Arts, National Endowment for the Humanities, and Institute of Museum and Library Services as well as other federal partners and the private sector, to address policy questions in the arts and humanities, to initiate and support key programs in those disciplines, and to recognize excellence in the field. Its core areas of focus are arts and humanities education and cultural exchange.It s also traditionally headed by the First Lady and this administration is no exception.Featured image via Matt Cardy/Getty Images | 0 |
8,414 | Two White House officials helped give Nunes intelligence reports: NYT | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Two White House officials played a role in providing House of Representatives Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes with documents showing President Donald Trump and his associates were swept up in surveillance by U.S. intelligence agencies, the New York Times reported on Thursday. Citing unnamed U.S. officials, the Times identified the White House officials as Ezra Cohen-Watnick, the senior director for intelligence at the National Security Council, and Michael Ellis, a lawyer who works on national security issues at the White House Counsel’s office. White House spokesman Sean Spicer declined to comment on the details of the report during a briefing on Thursday. The New York Times reported that Cohen-Watnick began reviewing “highly classified reports” about intercepted communications of foreign officials after Trump said on Twitter earlier this month that he was “wiretapped” by his predecessor, President Barack Obama. The reports reviewed by Cohen-Watnick consisted of mostly of ambassadors and other foreign officials talking about how to develop contacts with the Trump family and his inner circle ahead of inauguration, the paper reported. FBI Director James Comey told Congress he had seen no evidence to support the wiretapping claim. Obama has denied the accusation through a spokesman. Nunes, who was a member of Trump’s transition team, has faced criticism from Democrats and some prominent Republicans, for the way he handled the allegations about U.S. spy agency surveillance of Trump’s team. Many Democrats, including Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House intelligence panel, have called for Nunes to recuse himself from the investigation after he met last week with an unidentified source at the White House complex, accusing him of colluding with the White House. The House Intelligence Committee, headed by Nunes, is also investigating possible Russian attempts to influence the 2016 presidential election in Trump’s favor. Russia has denied the allegations. | 1 |
8,415 | Texas Teen Fatally Shoots Himself 5 Days After NRA-Recommended Gun Safety Course (VIDEO) | According to the NRA, we have nothing to fear from gun-toting individuals who have completed a safety course. There is no way, if properly trained, that they can present a danger to themselves or others. Unfortunately, one Texas teenager s family learned the hard way that sending their child off to receive firearms training then giving him a gun probably isn t the best way to go about life.Weatherford High School senior Brennan Weikel dreamed of playing football in college. Unfortunately, he will never be able to do that because his stepfather gave the inexperienced 17-year-old a weapon and took him out in the middle of the night for what was supposed to be a fun Spring Break hog hunting trip. I know everybody says, Oh, my kid s perfect. He really was. He was a good kid, said stepfather James Chambers. Chambers took Weikel out hunting just five days after the teenager had completed a gun safety course one that gives him the legal right to hunt under Texas law, regardless of the amount of experience he has. Chambers also left Weikel by himself to hunt, according to the Weatherford Democrat: They were placed in individual ground blinds, the little wooden ones, [Game Warden Penny Nixon] said. His stepfather shot a hog and called the victim to ask him to help retrieve it. And the stepfather reported that immediately upon hanging up with the stepson, just seconds later, he heard a shot. It came from the blind where the young victim was. After getting no response to a text asking about the shot, the Weikel s stepfather, who was approximately 300 yards away, went over to the stand and found the teen crumpled up in the corner, his feet tangled up in a chair, according to Wise County Sheriff Lane Akin. There may have been some hunter inexperience involved, Nixon explained.Akin says that the teen leaned over the rifle, which had a round chambered and the safety off, when he stood up after receiving his stepfather s text. When he reached for the grip of the rifle, he accidentally squeezed the trigger and fired a single round into his head. It was instantly fatal, Nixon said. It s a real tragedy. Yes, it is a real tragedy but the NRA and its acolytes will simply view this as an accident rather than a symptom of the problem that is gun culture in America. Simply put, this would have never happened if the teen s family had made the responsible decision not to place a gun in his hands. This would have never happened if the NRA and its Republican allies did not present arming teenagers as normal. This would have never happened if we would take reasonable steps to place age restrictions on firearm use, if we required more than a minimal amount of training, or if Weikel s stepfather had at least stayed by his side to make sure that he was using the gun properly.Contrary to the NRA s rhetoric, guns do not keep us safe. If they did, Weikel would still be playing football.Watch a report on the shooting below:Featured image via screengrab | 0 |
8,416 | Attorney General Lynch says hopes Apple will comply with court order | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch said on Monday that she hopes Apple Inc. (AAPL.O) will still comply with the court order by a federal judge in California to unlock the iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino shooters. “It is still our hope that they will see their way clear to complying with that order as thousands of other companies do every day,” Lynch said in an interview with Fox News. Asked about the FBI’s investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails, Lynch said the investigation would be done independently and refused to disclose information. Lynch said no one outside the Justice Department, even at the White House, has been briefed on the case. Lynch, who has been in the job as the United States’ top law enforcer since April 2015, waived off rumors that she might be nominated to the Supreme Court to replace late Justice Antonin Scalia. “I haven’t had those conversations. I’m very happy with my job,” Lynch repeated twice. | 1 |
8,417 | THEY KNEW! Donna Brazile Blows DNC Secret Wide Open: Exposes Sickening Reason DNC Remained Silent After Russians Hacked Their Emails | Is there a more corrupt and power hungry group of people anywhere in the United States? Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and the entire DNC are the reason for Donald Trump s meteoric rise to the White House after never running for a political office in his lifetime. When the Democrats complain about Donald Trump, they only need to find a mirror, to help them understand why he is so wildly popular with Americans who are sick and tired of the Washington cesspool Donna Brazile says in her new book the Democratic National Committee (DNC) went against professional advice and sat idly for a month while Russians stole data because primaries were still underway in a number of states.In May, when CrowdStrike recommended that we take down our system and rebuild it, the DNC told them to wait a month, because the state primaries for the presidential election were still underway, and the party and the staff needed to be at their computers to manage these efforts, Brazile wrote in her new book, Hacks. For a whole month, CrowdStrike watched Cozy Bear and Fancy Bear operating. Cozy Bear was the hacking force that had been in the DNC system for nearly a year. Cozy Bear and Fancy Bear are cybersecurity firms that have reported ties with Russian hackers. Both groups are blamed for the hacks on the DNC in 2016. CrowdStrike is a private U.S. cybersecurity firm that oversaw the protection of the DNC s servers.The DNC was under the leadership of Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida in May 2016 the time Brazile is describing in the passage. Shultz resigned in July, notably, over a series of leaked emails that showed DNC officials colluding to undermine Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont s campaign.Brazile s comments, if true, show that the DNC s privately contracted cybersecurity firm advised the Wasserman Schultz -led committee to break down and rebuild its cyber operation to protect against alleged threats. The DNC chose to go against the advice in order to see the Democratic primaries play out, which ended with Clinton becoming the Democrats nominee.For entire story: Daily Caller | 0 |
8,418 | Cabinet members lobby Trump to remove Iraq from new travel ban: officials | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Senior Cabinet members have lobbied President Donald Trump to remove Iraq from a list of seven Muslim-majority nations included in an initial travel ban, and an administration official said the country likely would not appear on a new executive order expected soon. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, national security adviser H.R. McMaster, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Homeland Security chief John Kelly all made the case to Trump to remove Iraq because of ongoing U.S. military and civilian operations in the country, according to three U.S. officials who said the Cabinet members made the case separately at recent meetings. An administration official said the new executive order would likely exclude Iraq. Another U.S. official said the State Department was confident Iraq would not appear, while a congressional aide said Iraq would be removed following conversations among White House advisers on Tuesday. When asked whether Iraq would be left out of the revised order, the White House said it did not have any announcements on the executive order right now. A White House official said the order was likely to come on Monday. Federal courts blocked Trump’s Jan. 27 executive order that temporarily barred travelers from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. Trump has said the travel limitations were necessary to protect the United States from attacks by Islamist militants. Americans were deeply divided over the measure, which had some support but stirred national protests and were condemned by prominent U.S. companies and allies. There are currently 5,200 American troops deployed in Iraq to assist Iraqi and Kurdish forces in retaking Mosul - the last city in Iraq under the control of Islamic State militants. Iraqis have fought alongside U.S. troops for years and have worked as translators. Many Iraqis have resettled in the United States following threats over their affiliation with U.S. troops. The United States also relies on Iraq to provide visas for a substantial contracting force that supports the U.S. military presence. Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi asked Trump to lift the ban on people from his country during their first phone call on Feb. 10, resisting calls from influential pro-Iranian Shi’ite politicians to retaliate against the ban. | 1 |
8,419 | U.N. panel calls on North Korea to end torture, child labor | GENEVA (Reuters) - A United Nations human rights panel said on Wednesday it had credible allegations that North Korean authorities had tortured or mistreated children forced to return from abroad or held in detention. It also called on Pyongyang to halt child labor in farming, mining and construction, as well as discrimination against youth for the crimes of their parents. The U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child, which reviewed Pyongyang s record last month, voiced deep concern at what it called the ideological indoctrination in its education system and malnutrition among North Korean children. We do have reports which are credible that children are at least to a certain extent tortured or exposed to violent treatment by the authorities in various circumstances, panel member Kirsten Sandberg told a news briefing. This might be when they return to the country after having tried to stay abroad and then are being forcibly returned. It happens on the border, we ve heard reports about violent treatment, she said. This involved mainly North Korean children returning from China, Sandberg said, adding: We also have reports of pregnant mothers coming back or being forcibly returned who are not to allowed to keep their babies. We also have reports of violence against children in detention, she said. Tensions in the region and beyond, especially with the United States, have risen considerably in recent months as North Korea conducted a series of tests of its medium- and long-range ballistic missiles, some of which flew over Japan, as well as its sixth nuclear test on Sept. 3. The U.N. panel, in a session on Sept. 21, asked the North Korean delegation how songbun , a system ranking citizens based on family loyalty to the ruling dynasty, affected children s access to education, health and food. The North Korean delegation replied that this was an imaginary concept invented by hostile forces. In its findings, the U.N. panel said it had reports of discrimination against students based on their social status and political views of their parents . North Korea has a serious nutrition problem , Sandberg said. There is still an over 40 percent rate of under-nourishment. This also a serious underlying cause for child mortality, also mortality of their mothers. And children under five years continue to suffer from high rates of stunting and wasting, she said. Children are told to volunteer extensive periods of their day to work on farms and mines, collect wood in the forests, repair railroads, clean statues and participate in forestation initiatives and construction projects, the U.N. panel said, noting these were referred to as economic assignments . The watchdog, composed of 18 independent experts, also called on North Korea to allow children freedom of expression, including access to the Internet. North Korea told the U.N. panel last month that international sanctions imposed on it over its nuclear and ballistic missile programs would endanger the survival of North Korean children. There was no immediate reaction from Pyongyang to the findings, but a North Korean diplomat in Geneva told Reuters just before they were released: We are committed to dialogue . | 1 |
8,420 | THE 2016 PRESIDENTIAL RACE: Do Our Votes Really Matter? | By James PerloffMy friend Rachael McIntosh was an alternate delegate at the 2012 Republican Convention in Tampa, Florida, representing Ron Paul for the state of Rhode Island.Rachael had worked for a private defense contractor for years. Awakened by the corruption and darkness she witnessed, she left the defense industry, and began working tirelessly toward getting Ron Paul elected. She has fictionalized her experiences in a superbly written trilogy of novels, Security through Absurdity.The Tampa convention was supposed to begin on Monday, August 27. Ron Paul was originally slated to speak, but the convention was cancelled for that evening due to the threat of a hurricane. The hurricane turned out to be no more than a brisk rainstorm. Rachael and many other Ron Paul delegates braved it that morning and went to the convention center (the Tampa Bay Times Forum, a sports complex) to watch Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus officially proclaim the delay. After the gravel had been struck and the chairman left the stage, the delegates found themselves watching a movie glorifying Mitt Romney. At the film s conclusion, Rachael heard ear-splitting applause. But when she looked around, almost no one was cheering. The applause was canned the type sports stadiums pipe in when the home team is losing and their spectators show low enthusiasm.The next day at her hotel, Rachael s husband called and said: Hey, I watched it yesterday and the crowd was really diggin Romney. Rachael had to break the news: what he (and the rest of America) heard on TV had been faked.The real blow to the Ron Paul people came when the Republican National Committee made last-minute rule changes. Under the existing rules, Paul had won enough primaries and caucuses (five) to have his name placed in nomination. Under the newrules, the required number of states would be increased to eight, thus rendering Paul s nomination impossible. Mitt Romney, who had already won sufficient delegates through dirty tricks during the primaries to become the presumptive nominee, would also be granted power to replace duly elected delegates with people of his own choosing.Naturally, Paul s delegates were anxious to vote on the rule changes. However, the convention busses showed up at their hotels late. The driver of Rachael s bus didn t seem to know the way to the convention center, got stuck in traffic, and took about two hours to complete the trip. By the time most of the Paul delegates reached the center, and passed through its heavy security, the vote was already over. Mitt Romney would be the Republican Convention s unanimous choice.Ron Paul was still offered a chance to make a speech, but only under two conditions: (1) that he endorse Romney; and (2) that the Republic National Committee first vet and approve the speech. Under these conditions, Paul acted on integrity and declined to speak.A word should be added about the media in Tampa. On the convention s last day, Rachael dressed up in funeral black and handed out cards offering condolences to America upon the loss of the democratic process. She gave one to a leading news journalist who said I love it. When Rachael asked if he would do a story on it, he literally replied: It doesn t fit the pre-scripted narrative. Sorry. That the media was bound to a pre-scripted narrative was later proven when a brawl broke out between the Romney and Paul delegates, complete with screaming, pushing and shoving, right by the entrance to the press boxes (CNN, Fox, MSNBC, etc.). Although the brawl should have been news, not a single journalist emerged with a camera to record it. After all, it didn t fit the pre-scripted narrative namely, that Republicans unanimously supported Mitt Romney.What lesson can we draw from Rachael s experience? The same one that people have been learning the hard way for decades: that regardless of much you work for a Presidential candidate, the PTB (Powers That Be) will railroad their candidate to the top. The following quote from my 1988 book The Shadows of Power refers to the election year of 1952:At the Republican nominating convention, dirty tricks abounded. The rules for selecting delegates were changed: Taft delegations from Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas were thrown out and replaced by Eisenhower supporters. I.e., the same sort of tactics that Ron Paul s supporters faced in 2012 were used at the GOP Convention 60 years earlier. I ll add that Dwight Eisenhower had no previous affiliation with the Republican Party; the Democratic Party had tried to draft him in 1948, and President Harry Truman (Democrat) had approached him about running on the same ticket. Above: Nixon and Eisenhower at the 1952 conventionLet s kick it back to 1940. Seven weeks before the GOP Convention, a poll showed only three percent of Republicans favored candidate Wendell Willkie, who, prior to that year, had been a registered Democrat. But with powerful magic, Willkie got the nomination. Ten-term Congressman Usher Burdick of North Dakota said of this:We Republicans in the west want to know if Wall Street and the international bankers control our party and can select our candidate? I believe I am serving the best interests of the Republican Party by protesting and exposing the machinations and attempts of J.P. Morgan and the New York utility bankers in forcing Wendell Willkie on the Republican Party. . . .There is nothing to the Willkie boom for President except the artificial public opinion being created by newspapers, magazines, and the radio. The reason back of all this is money. Money is being spent by someone, and lots of it. PHOTO: Wendell Willkie PHOTO: Usher Burdick (right) in 1958 with Ezra PoundFor those who wonder if such phenomena only happen to Republicans, Bernie Sanders can already feel the spurn. He won New Hampshire by a landslide (60 to 38 percent) only to discover that Hillary Clinton had been awarded the majority of delegates. This is because the Democratic Party has 717 superdelegates who support whomever they prefer, regardless of the wishes of voters or primary results.Go back to 1976. According to a Gallup poll, just seven months before the Democratic National Convention, less than four percent of Democratic voters favored Jimmy Carter for President. What happened? As Lawrence Shoup noted in The Carter Presidency and Beyond:What Carter had that his opponents did not was the acceptance and support of elite sectors of the mass communications media. It was their favorable coverage of Carter and his campaign that gave him an edge, propelling him rocket-like to the top of the opinion polls. This helped Carter win key primary election victories, enabling him to rise from an obscure public figure to President-elect in the short space of 9 months.How did Carter acquire this media following? It began at a dinner with Republican David Rockefeller kingmaker of the Establishment at the latter s Tarrytown, New York estate. Also present was Zbigniew Brzezinski, who helped Rockefeller found the internationalist Trilateral Commission, and whom Carter would later appoint National Security Adviser. The media blitz included adulatory pieces in the New York Times, and a Wall Street Journal editorial declaring that Carter was the best Democratic candidate. Before the nominating convention, his picture appeared on the cover of Time three times, and Newsweek twice. Time s cover artists were even instructed to make him look as much as possible like John F. Kennedy. The TV networks inundated the public with his image.As former Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater said:David Rockefeller and Zbigniew Brzezinski found Jimmy Carter to be their ideal candidate. They helped him win the nomination and the presidency. To accomplish this purpose, they mobilized the money power of the Wall Street bankers, the intellectual influence of the academic community which is subservient to the wealth of the great tax-free foundations and the media controllers represented in the membership of the CFR and the Trilateral.If you want to glimpse how far back this sort of power-brokering goes, read Ferdinand Lundberg s 1937 classic America s Sixty Families. He related how, a century ago, the rich were scorning voters and maneuvering their own choices into nominations, whether a Democrat like Woodrow Wilson in 1912 or a Republican like Herbert Hoover in 1928.The 2016 RaceWhat about this year? Who have the PTB anointed to become President? While I am of course not privy to their conclaves, I believe their chosen one, as I stated in my blog post of February 15, is Hillary Clinton. There are several indicators:(1) Despite her anti-Wall Street rhetoric, Hillary receives by far the most donations from Wall Street of any candidate. Jeb Bush competed with her for that distinction, but since Jeb s personality proved too lackluster to muster enough votes to stay in the race, Hillary holds the honor alone. Above: Hillary partakes in groundbreaking ceremony for Goldman Sachs new headquarters in 2005. (2) Of the viable candidates, only Hillary is committed to 100 percent of the Rothschild agenda: pro War on Terror pro Israel pro gun control pro GMO (Monsanto) pro population control (abortion, vaccines, etc.) pro climate change control pro mass immigration pro Internet censorship pro gay agenda pro TPP (she is currently backing off on this because of voter concern about jobs, but before running she said This TPP sets the gold standard in trade agreements, and was a strong proponent of the job-destroying NAFTA and GATT agreements)(3) I ll interject here that Rachael McIntosh told me she believes that in 2008, an understanding was reached concerning Obama and Clinton, both of whom were running that year. Obama would become the first black President; Hillary s turn would arrive in due time, and she would become the first woman President. Having a black or woman in the Oval Office, of course, gives the public the illusion that they are empowered and that the Establishment has somehow been stymied, whereas in fact both Obama and Hillary are flunkies for the Establishment. I agree with Rachael s assessment 100 percent.And so it was that Obama appointed Hillary his Secretary of State, a move clearly intended to give her a foreign policy expertise credential for the 2016 Presidential campaign. After Clinton left the position (2013), CBS began airing (2014) its still-running drama Madam Secretary, all about a blonde woman Secretary of State. Subliminal Advertising: Hollywood began campaigning for Hillary Clinton in 2014. Beginning with the very first episode, in which Madam Secretary rescued American hostages held in Syria, viewers would receive a weekly dose of subliminal propaganda for Hillary s campaign, portraying her as beautiful, heroic, honest and competent.(4) Prior to being Secretary of State, Hillary served as U.S. Senator from New York. She had never lived in New York before, but the state is the center of America s banking industry, and has been a launching point for Presidential candidates such as the Roosevelts. Serving a Senate term, of course, would also give Hillary an important can work with Congress credential for her Presidential run. There is considerable Internet buzz that John F. Kennedy, Jr., who had long lived in New York, was planning to run for the Senate in 2000, the same year as Clinton. The handsome son of the popular President would likely have defeated Clinton, adding interest to Kennedy s death in a suspicious plane crash on July 16, 1999, especially in light of what has been termed the Clinton Body Count.(5) Perhaps most importantly, the Establishment has already marked Hillary with their stamp of approval by entrusting her with two terms in the White House. Yes, Bill Clinton was President then, but if Hillary is elected, Bill will of course be returning.Will the email or Benghazi scandals derail her Presidential bid? I doubt it. During Bill s tenure, the Clintons were plagued by innumerable scandals besides mysterious deaths: sex charges, perjury, Whitewater, Chinagate, Travelgate, drug allegations connected with his Arkansas governorship, Hillary s incredible cattle futures profits, etc. Yet although many pundits back then claimed these scandals would lead to impeachment, the Clintons always remained untouched by justice. So far, nothing seems to have changed. However, Hillary s scandals do give the Establishment a blackmailer s leash on her; i.e., if she ever steps out of line, prosecutions could suddenly materialize.What about the other candidates currently running? All of them share some of Hillary s positions, but none do 100 percent. Bernie Sanders is too opposed to banker bailouts to be acceptable, even though the Establishment is OK with his socialism (since, in an illusional democracy, empowering government empowers them). Cruz s wife Heidi is a former term member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a vice president at Goldman Sachs, from whom Cruz s Senate campaign received a million-dollar loan; but his positions on matters like abortion, gun control and immigration don t pass muster Continue this story at James PerloffREAD MORE ELECTION NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire 2016 Files | 0 |
8,421 | Several Bars Will Be Opening Early Thursday For Comey’s Hearing, Serving Cheap Russian Vodka | If you are looking for somewhere to drink while you watch former-FBI Director James Comey s testimony on Thursday morning, then it seems like your prayers have been answered. At least three bars in Washington DC will be opening early for the event.Shaw s Tavern at 520 Florida Ave NW will be hosting The Comey Hearing Covfefe. Opening at 9:30 am, Shaw s will have five screens showing Comey s testimony and will be serving $5 Stolichnaya Vodka flavors, as well as some house specials for the day, including the FBI sandwich, consisting of Fried chicken breast, Bacon and Iceberg lettuce on a toasted bun with fries for $10. If you d prefer breakfast, then there is another FBI available French toast, Bacon and Ice cream, also for $10.Duffy s Irish Pub, situated at 2106 Vermont Ave NW, will have their James Comey Show featuring the Covfefe Cocktail. Although few details are known about the event or the contents of the Covfefe Cocktail, Duffy s is decked out with 15 screens and serves what have been voted The Best Wings in DC, hopefully all left ones.Another option is The Partisan, located at 709 D St NW, and their Comey Viewing Party. The Partisan will be opening at 10 am for all of the Comey action, but suggest grabbing breakfast at Red Apron Butcher s D Street location first. After that, you can pull up a seat in The Partisan and watch it all go down while enjoying either a Last Word or Drop The Bomb cocktail at $6 each.Unfortunately, not everyone wanting to watch the show with an early morning drink will be in Washington, however, those in Houston, TX, will be in luck with Axelrad at 1517 Alabama St playing host to the Comey Testimony Viewing the SUPER BOWL of Washington. Axelrad will open at 8:45 am and will be offering $1 off their political drinks including impeachmint and bad hombre. Muffins, granola, and coffee will also be available.Who said you had to stay home to enjoy all of the Comey testimony fun on Thursday morning?Featured image via Eric Thayer/Getty Images | 0 |
8,422 | Ruling against ex-AIG boss Greenberg raises stakes in Trump University case | NEW YORK (Reuters) - A ruling by New York’s highest court in a fraud case against former American International Group Inc (AIG.N) Chief Executive Maurice “Hank” Greenberg could affect the state’s case against Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and his defunct Trump University. The New York Court of Appeals ruled on Thursday that state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman could seek to recoup millions of dollars in bonus payments to Greenberg using the legal remedy called disgorgement. Unlike damages, which are used to compensate victims’ losses, disgorgement requires a defendant to give back gains obtained from unlawful means. The ruling means that Schneiderman can go after $5 million he says Trump personally pocketed from the Trump University real-estate seminar venture. “It doesn’t help him,” Jeffrey Goldman, Trump’s lawyer in the New York case, said on Monday of the Greenberg ruling. But Goldman said Trump expected to win the case and could also try to limit the amount subject to disgorgement, such as by arguing that most of it was earned outside of New York. According to the state’s 2013 lawsuit against Trump, filed in state court in Manhattan, Trump University was an unlicensed, illegal operation that bilked students of up to $35,000 each between 2005 and 2011. Two proposed class actions in California make similar allegations. Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, has repeatedly raised the Trump University litigation on the campaign trail, calling the lawsuits baseless and politically motivated. He has also accused the federal judge overseeing the California lawsuits of being biased against him because of his ethnicity. The judge was born in Indiana to Mexican parents. In the Greenberg case, the state accused the former CEO of orchestrating sham transactions at AIG and misleading shareholders about the company’s financial health between 2000 and 2005. Schneiderman is asking that Greenberg disgorge some $25 million in bonuses during that period, plus interest. Greenberg has denied any wrongdoing. His lawyer, David Boies, who represented Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore in the dispute over the 2000 election recount, had argued that disgorgement was not a remedy available to the New York attorney general under either the state’s securities fraud law or another fraud statute. The Court of Appeals rejected Boies’ arguments. The ability to seek disgorgement may be useful to Schneiderman because the California cases involving Trump University may be resolved before the New York case. One is scheduled for trial on Nov. 28, just a few weeks after the Nov. 8 election. A settlement or judgment in those cases could undermine Schneiderman’s claim for $40 million in damages because he is suing on behalf of many of the same former Trump University students. But disgorgement claims would not be affected. | 1 |
8,423 | JOE BIDEN Called McCain Urged Him to Vote Against Obamacare Repeal | THE OLD GUARD DEMOCRATS BROUGHT ON THE FULL COURT PRESS: Former Vice President Joe Biden personally lobbied Sen. John McCain before the senator cast the crucial vote to take down a Republican attempt to repeal the Obamacare, according to The Washington Post.The call between the two was emotional, according to the Post. McCain was recently diagnosed with the same kind of brain cancer that Biden s son Beau died of in 2015. Joe Biden served in the Senate from 1972 until 2008, while McCain has been a senator since 1987 .TERM LIMITS!While Biden lobbied McCain, former President Barack Obama remained quiet on the issue as the Senate was on the verge of dismantling a core piece of his legacy.Former Sen. Joseph Lieberman a close friend of McCain, also lobbied him to oppose the bill, according to the Post.Read more: HuffPo | 0 |
8,424 | EU's Barnier is ready to speed up Brexit negotiations | PRAGUE (Reuters) - The European Union s chief Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier, said on Tuesday that he was ready to speed up negotiations with Great Britain. Barnier said that the agenda and dates for the next round of Brexit talks would be set in next few hours or days . | 1 |
8,425 | Trump says wall may not need to cover entire U.S.-Mexico border | PARIS (Reuters) - President Donald Trump said the wall he wants to build on the 2,000-mile (3,200-km) U.S.-Mexico frontier may not need to cover the entire border because of existing natural barriers, according to remarks released by the White House on Thursday. On a flight to Paris from Washington, Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One: “You have mountains. You have some rivers that are violent and vicious. You have some areas that are so far away that you don’t really have people crossing. “But you’ll need anywhere from 700 to 900 miles.” Trump also told reporters on the plane it was important that border agents and others should be able to see through the wall so they could be aware of oncoming dangers. “As horrible as it sounds, when they throw the large sacks of drugs over, and if you have people on the other side of the wall, you don’t see them. They hit you on the head with 60 pounds of stuff? It’s over,” Trump said. One of Trump’s major 2016 campaign promises was to build a border wall to fight illegal immigration. His vow that Mexico would pay for the wall, which the Mexican government has insisted it will not do, has strained relations between the two neighbors. Trump has since said he will find a way for Mexico to repay the United States for construction of the wall but that Congress would need to fund it first. But almost six months into his presidency, he has so far asked Congress for only $1.6 billion for a project estimated to cost more than $20 billion. The border, which stretches across four U.S. states, already has 600 miles (965 km) of barriers, including fences and walls. Republicans on the House of Representatives Appropriations Committee introduced a bill on Tuesday that funded the $1.6 billion request, but Senate Democrats are likely to oppose it. | 1 |
8,426 | Dan Rather Has SHOCKING Response After Trump Sides With Assange Over America (TWEET) | Legendary reporter Dan Rather has commented on the ridiculous antics of President-elect Donald Trump before, but it seems as though Trump s foolishness and erratic behavior has finally struck a nerve that Rather can t shake off.Earlier today, Trump sent out a tweet that took the side of Julian Assange after the WikiLeaks founder claimed he had not gotten the Democratic National Committee s emails from Russia in an interview with Fox News. Trump pathetically used this information to defend Russia despite the fact that multiple intelligence reports have pointed right to the Kremlin.In response to this, Rather took to Facebook to rip Trump a new one for his cavalier dismissal of Russia s involvement in the U.S. election. Rather didn t mince his words, perfectly stating what many of us are feeling at this point, as our future President sides with our adversaries. Rather wrote: Stunned disbelief. Anxiety. A mounting sense of betrayal. These are the smoke signals rising from those in and around the United States intelligence community over President-elect Donald Trump s dismissal of the evidence of Russian hacking in the presidential election. Rather blasted Trump for trusting Assange over America s own intelligence communities, remarking on Trump s stupidity for trusting someone who clearly doesn t have the United States best interest in mind: Assange, in an interview with Fox News Sean Hannity (who at this point must be considered a full-fledged propagandist and abetter) said he didn t get the information from Russia. Well if he says so Let s just use that same standard for all of our adversaries. Nothing to see here. Why waste all these billions of dollars on intelligence gathering? Rather also raised a question that many of us have been wondering when he asked how the many people risking their lives and using their immense analytical skills instead of making millions on Wall Street feel about Mr. Trump s cavalier dismissal of their work. Rather perfectly stated that Trump s denial and refusal of the intelligence reports is dangerous and affects all Americans, and people around the world. The legendary reporter called on Trump s fellow Republicans and advisers to knock some sense into the President-elect: Hopefully patriots within Mr. Trump s own party and in his inner circle will step up and tell the incoming president how dangerous this rhetoric is. Heaven forbid we suffer another horrible attack. Heaven forbid our intelligence community was hollowed out, wasn t listened to or respected. These are the stakes. No one could have said it better. You can read Rather s response to Trump s idiocy below:Featured image via screen capture | 0 |
8,427 | Chaos, anger as Trump order halts some Muslim immigrants | WASHINGTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) - President Donald Trump’s order to restrict people from seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States sparked confusion and anger on Saturday after immigrants and refugees were kept off flights and left stranded in airports. In his most sweeping decision since taking office a week ago, Trump, a Republican, put a four-month hold on allowing refugees into the United States and temporarily barred travelers from Syria and six other countries. Civil rights and faith groups, activists and Democratic politicians were furious and vowed to fight the order. Capping a day of confusion and chaos and protests in several airports across the country, a federal judge in Brooklyn, New York, granted a temporary reprieve. The American Civil Liberties Union successfully argued for a temporary stay that allowed detained travelers to stay in the United States. Supporters outside the Brooklyn courtroom and at protests at airports in Dallas, Chicago, New York and elsewhere cheered the decision, but a bigger fight lay ahead. The court action does not reverse Trump’s order, which was criticized by some of America’s closest allies. Trump, a businessman who successfully tapped into American fears about terror attacks during his campaign, had promised what he called “extreme vetting” of immigrants and refugees from areas the White House said the U.S. Congress deemed to be high risk. He told reporters in the White House’s Oval Office on Saturday that his order was “not a Muslim ban” and said the measures were long overdue. “It’s working out very nicely. You see it at the airports, you see it all over,” Trump said. Along with Syria, the ban affects travelers with passports from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. The Department of Homeland Security said about 375 travelers had been affected by the order, 109 of whom were in transit and were denied entry to the United States. Another 173 were stopped by airlines before boarding. The order “affects a minor portion of international travelers,” the department said in a statement, saying the measures “inconvenienced” less than 1 percent of travelers. The new rules blindsided people in transit and families waiting for them, and caused havoc for businesses with employees holding passports from the targeted nations and colleges with international students. Pegah Rahmani, 25, waited at Washington’s Dulles airport for several hours for her grandparents, both Iranian citizens with U.S. green cards. “They weren’t treating them very well,” she said. Rahmani’s grandfather is 88 and legally blind. Her grandmother is 83 and recently had a stroke. They were released to loud cheers and cries. Several Democratic governors said they were examining whether they could launch legal challenges, and other groups eyed a constitutional challenge claiming religious discrimination. “I don’t think anyone is going to take this lying down,” said Cleveland immigration lawyer David Leopold. “This is the tip of the spear and more litigation is coming.” The White House did not respond immediately to a request for comment. The Department of Homeland Security said the order would stay in place. “No foreign national in a foreign land, without ties to the United States, has any unfettered right to demand entry into the United States,” the department statement said. Mark Krikorian, the director of the conservative Center for Immigration Studies, called lawsuits challenging the order “last ditch efforts” that would only apply to a few individuals, and he said a broader constitutional argument would be hard to win. “The first amendment doesn’t apply to foreigners living abroad. The law explicitly says the president can exclude any person or class of people he wants,” Krikorian said. Some leaders from the U.S. technology industry, a major employer of foreign workers, issued warnings to their staff and called the order immoral and un-American. “This ban will impact many innocent people,” said Travis Kalanick, chief executive of Uber Technologies Inc UBER.UL, who said he would raise the issue at a White House meeting on Friday. Arab travelers in the Middle East and North Africa said the order was humiliating and discriminatory. Iran vowed to retaliate. Sudan called the action “very unfortunate” after Washington lifted sanctions on the country just weeks ago for cooperation on combating terrorism. A Yemeni official expressed dismay at the ban. Iraq’s former ambassador to the United States, Lukman Faily, told Reuters that Trump’s ban was unfair to a country that itself has been a victim of terror attacks, and could backfire. “We have a strong partnership with U.S., more so in the urgent fight against terrorism. This ban move will not help, and people will start questioning the bond of this partnership, Faily said. Allies in the United Kingdom, France and Germany were critical. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau tweeted a photo of himself welcoming Syrian refugees. Confusion abounded at airports as immigration and customs officials struggled to interpret the new rules. Some legal residents with green cards who were in the air when the order was issued were detained at airports upon arrival. However, senior administration officials said it would have been “reckless” to broadcast details of the order in advance. Other officials said green card holders from the affected countries would require extra screening and would be cleared on a case-by-case basis. Airlines were blindsided and some cabin crew were barred from entering the country. Travelers were handled differently at different points of entry and immigration lawyers advised clients to change their destination to the more lenient airports, said Houston immigration lawyer Mana Yegani. At Chicago O’Hare International Airport, brothers Bardia and Ayden Noohi waited for four hours for their father Kasra Noohi - who has an Iranian passport and a U.S. green card - to be allowed through. They knew Trump had pledged tougher rules but did not expect the problems. “I didn’t think he’d actually do it,” Bardia Noohi, 32, said. “A lot of politicians just talk.” Thousands of refugees seeking entry were thrown into limbo. Melanie Nezer of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society said she knew of roughly 2,000 who were booked to come to the United States next week. Trump’s order indefinitely bans refugees from Syria. In a television interview, he said he would seek to prioritize Christian refugees fleeing the war-torn country. U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said they were not consulted on the action and in some cases only learned the details as they were made public. At the State Department, a senior official said lawyers were working to interpret the executive order, which allows entry to people affected by the order when it is in the “national interest.” However, a federal law enforcement official said: “It’s unclear at this point what the threshold of national interest is.” | 1 |
8,428 | number of accusers grows to as former miss finland accuses trump of sexual assault | by robert franek on sun oct th at am imagine if working to end rape culture were treated with the same attention as hillary clintons emails this is one fire that is burning strong and is a true threat to personal and public safety security and wellbeing share on twitter print this post
the following post written by the rev robert a franek is a part of politicus policy discussion in which writers draw connections between real lives and public policy
even after months and months of coverage blown out of proportion and at great expense to the public in dollars psychic stress and issue coverage it seems all one has to do is put hillary clinton and emails together in the same sentence with claims of lying and threatening national security and pandemonium continues to break loose throughout the mass media and social media worlds and yet despite multiple investigations and repeated explanations the pandemonium persists so much so that every time republicans stir up some smoke the media assumes there must be a blazing fire and sadly this is not going away anytime soon as republicans are promising more sham investigations in lieu of actually governing as sarah jones reported
republicans are already planning how to avoid being grown ups who do their jobs if hillary clinton is elected president yes there will be more toythrowing and tantrums and best of all for the party of fiscal humiliations more wasteful spending on political witch hunts sarah jones
meanwhile women continue to come forward with painful heartbreaking stories of donald trumps sexual harassment and assault yet instead of being portrayed as survivors who have finally had enough of the republican presidential nominee and his lies and as women who have the strength and courage to go public with their stories they are being made into opportunistic victims and challenged for not coming forward sooner much sooner woefully no mention is made of the many intersecting reasons that lead many women and men not to report these crimes including that this is the only time when the victim is placed on trial
after walking her readers through one incident of donald trumps public sexual humiliation of a woman for revenge sarah jones makes the following observation
if there is any good to come out of the total crapfest of the trump candidacy perhaps it is a raised awareness that women are people and that this kind of thing is horrific but its not all trumps fault its the cultures fault because it takes a willing audience to successfully publicly sexually shame a woman
she is right donald trump is despicable still there is cultural culpability in the perpetuation of rape culture where women are treated as objects forced into silence and placed on trial for their assailants crimes
this must change
it is unacceptable in a country that places such a high value on freedom that so many are not free from sexual harassment assault exploitation and humiliation more it is appalling that such behavior is often cheered unchallenged and dismissed it is also inexcusable that survivors face unparalleled levels of scrutiny when they do finally come forward
it is also beyond tragic that people of faith who read the first chapter of genesis cant bear out the implications of men and women being created simultaneously and bearing equally the divine image
supposed christian values champion and republican vice presidential nominee mike pence is more upset over an article he didnt read regarding voter suppression efforts by the trump campaign than any of the horrifying things donald trump has said including bragging about sexual assault
these are not christian values nor are they values any civil society should hold failing to call out donald trumps abhorrent behavior and speech is beyond deplorable additionally supporting candidates like donald trump and mike pence gives validity to their wretched views and is especially shocking when done by people of faith and family values
as a society we must challenge the pervasive and systemic sexism and misogyny that persists in our culture as much as we need changes in our laws and lawmakers at every level of government to reflect the equality and humanity of women we need a moral revival in our collective conscience as a nation that decries every facet of rape culture from how we raise our children to the victim blaming and shaming that happens each time a survivor goes public with their story
imagine if working to end rape culture were treated with the same attention as hillary clintons emails this is one fire that is burning strong and is a true threat to personal and public safety security and wellbeing
email pandemonium and the perpetuation of rape culture added by robert franek on sun oct th | 1 |
8,429 | John McCain: Trump’s Attacks On The Press Are ‘How Dictators Get Started’ (VIDEO) | Donald Trump has declared the media to be the enemy, but John McCain has a stark warning about Trump s most recent declaration of war: suppressing the free press is how dictators get started. During a Sunday morning interview on Meet the Press, the Republican senator told NBC s Chuck Todd that if we want to preserve democracy, then we have to have a free press. Period. I hate the press. I hate you especially, McCain joked. But the fact is we need you. We need a free press. We must have it. It s vital. If you want to preserve I m very serious now if you want to preserve democracy as we know it, you have to have a free and many times adversarial press, McCain said. And without it, I am afraid that we would lose so much of our individual liberties over time. That s how dictators get started. Trump went on a Twitter rant and attacked the free press yet again on Friday, declaring that the media is the enemy of the American people. The FAKE NEWS media (failing @nytimes, @NBCNews, @ABC, @CBS, @CNN) is not my enemy, it is the enemy of the American People! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 17, 2017McCain said that while becoming a dictator isn t necessarily Trump s goal, he does think we need to look at history and learn from it to avoid making the same mistakes we have made in the past. And what history shows us is that dictators get started by suppressing free press. In other words, a consolidation of power when you look at history, the first thing that dictators do is shut down the press. And I m not saying that President Trump is trying to be a dictator. I m just saying we need to learn the lessons of history. Here s the video:Featured image via video screen capture | 0 |
8,430 | 'We are one': Palestinian Christians and Muslims unite against Trump's Jerusalem call | JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Less than an hour after U.S. President Donald Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel s capital, Palestinians protested by turning off the lights on the Christmas tree outside Bethlehem s Church of the Nativity, the traditional birthplace of Jesus. It was a timely reminder that while headlines focused on Islamist calls for uprisings and Trump s references to Jewish historical ties, the president s words also stirred deep feelings among the Palestinians small Christian community. Coming out of the Sunday service in his Assyrian Catholic church in Jerusalem, Fredrick Hazo accused Trump of dragging all the world into trouble , and called on the U.S. leader to reverse his decision. We are united - Christians, Muslims, we are one, said the 59-year-old Palestinian musician, standing in an alley in the heart of the Old City, surrounded by shops selling religious trinkets. He was frustrated by the politics, but confident the delicate balance the three faiths kept in the holy city would prevail. In this sacred place, God is protecting us all. We are guarded by his angels in Jerusalem, Hazo added. Christians make up around just one percent of the Palestinian population in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem - though they punch above their weight in local and national politics. Back in July, Hazo protested alongside Muslims against Israel s installation of security scanners at the nearby al-Aqsa mosque - Islam s third holiest site - after two Arab-Israeli gunmen shot dead two Israeli police officers at the site. It removed the metal detectors after days of bloody clashes, scenes that have not been repeated in the city since Trump s declaration. The appeals to religious unity inside Jerusalem s walls stand in contrast to the more divided voices outside. In the hours running up to Trump s statement, Pope Francis called for the status quo in the city to be respected. The Episcopal Church of the United States said Trump s announcement could have profound ramifications on the peace process and the future of a two-state solution . But Trump s decision found strong backing from another corner of the Christian community - many among his own country s politically powerful evangelicals who see God s hand in the modern-day return of Jews to a biblical homeland. Trump convened a circle of evangelical advisers during his presidential bid, and he was the overwhelming favorite of white evangelical voters in last year s U.S. election. We are all bible-believers and we believe that this is the bible-land and that Jerusalem is the ancient capital of Israel back to the days of King David, said Dallas-based Mike Evans, part of an evangelical group that met Trump on Monday. So for our president to stand up and declare it makes us extremely proud and honored. For Palestinian supermarket cashier Mohammed al-Hawa, however, Trump s words and the logic behind them ignored the more complex reality on the ground. People of all faith in Jerusalem were united in prayer, the 33-year-old said, even if they were divided over politics. Christians, Jews and Muslims live in this city together. There is no problem between them. Only the politics. The governments want to make wars, he said. This is my city - my blood, my life, added a 70-year-old Palestinian, walking through the pilgrim-packed courtyard of Jerusalem s Church of the Holy Sepulchre, revered by Christians as the site of Jesus s tomb. The church is packed into a small parcel of land that also holds the al-Aqsa compound and Judaism s Western Wall I can go to the church, to anywhere in Jerusalem, not Trump nor Netanyahu can stop me, added the man who identified himself only as a Jerusalemite . | 1 |
8,431 | HUFFINGTON POST PUBLISHES, Then DELETES “Trump Is Absolutely Right About Sweden” Article…But OOPS! It Was Archived…And We’re Happy To Share Its BRUTALLY HONEST Content With You! | Yesterday, social media was buzzing after The Huffington Post actually posted a story that not only backed up Trump s assertion about Sweden being a hot mess, but it called out journalists for lying about how the invasion of immigrants are destroying European nations. The title of the article in and of itself, is bad enough: Trump is absolutely right about Sweden but the honesty with which the writer approaches the subject is even more stunning. Not surprisingly, after getting a lot of negative reaction from the left who felt the Huffington Post let them down by actually telling the truth, the Huffington Post deleted the story. Our friend @TEN_GOP was kind enough to archive the story before they deleted it.https://twitter.com/TEN_GOP/status/834822902495145985President Trump tweeted clarification of the comments he made about Sweden that the Huffington Post author Ren Zografos referenced in his article:My statement as to what's happening in Sweden was in reference to a story that was broadcast on @FoxNews concerning immigrants & Sweden. Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 19, 2017After The Huffington Post deleted his article, Ren Zografos came out in defense of his words and of Trump comments about Sweden on Twitter:Trump is absolutely right about Sweden https://t.co/jyFM3bjIE8 Ren Zografos (@zokrates) February 22, 2017Here he Zografos defends his article as nothing but the truth. :Thank you for all supports so far, kind people. The story is nothing but the truth.. #truth #media #Trump Ren Zografos (@zokrates) February 23, 2017Sweden has huge problems because of liberal immigration policy Many journalists around the world are eager to condemn Donald Trump no matter what. When he tweeted about immigration in Sweden few days ago, the social media exploded. Most of the opponent said that Trump has made up the immigration problem Sweden have. They are wrong.Only hours later there was a riot of violence and destructions by immigrants in the capitol of Sweden, Stockholm. The police was forced to shoot with ammunition to put and end to it. In Malm , another city south in Sweden they have struggle with gang violence and lawlessness for years. So when Trump talk about that Sweden have an immigration problem he is actually spot on.It s well known for Scandinavians and other Europeans that liberal immigration comes with drugs, rapes, gang wars, robbery and violence. Additional to that we see the respective nations cultures fading away, for good and for bad.But the immigration problem is not only a Swedish predicament. The truth is, that several European cities have huge immigration problems where even the police force is afraid to interfere in some locations in these cities. UK, France and several other European countries are changing rapidly with extreme quantity of immigration. I m not saying immigration is only bad, but a lot of problems come with poor immigration policy, as consequences we get violence, terror and gangs. The fact is that the press here in Europe hasn t doing their job properly. There is this fear for journalists to not report the basic truth which is that Europe has enormous problems that comes from liberal immigration politics, and as we also now can see in Sweden, but also here in Norway. But it s not political correct for journalists to say or write that immigration in Europe is unsuccessful. When that said, most of the people that come from other countries are behaving flawless and are a gift to our society, but then again to report that everything is all good is simply wrong and these journalists should find another job, because they do not have enough integrity that requires to be decent journalist.Go here to see the actual archived article. | 0 |
8,432 | VICIOUS BERNIE SANDERS Goes on Angry Anti-Christian Tirade Against Deputy Budget Nominee [Video] | BERNIE SANDERS decided to go after the religion of a nominee for Deputy Director of the Office of Management and Budget This was a vicious attack on RUSSELL VOUGHT who has strong Christian beliefs that have absolutely nothing to do with what he was being questioned about. Religious beliefs aren t budgetary concerns. This was a personal attack on a DEVOUTLY RELIGIOUS man who had written an article years past defending his Christian College.PART OF THE EXCHANGE BETWEEN SANDERS AND VOUGHT:Sanders is quoting from an article that Vought wrote: Muslims do not simply have a deficient theology. They do not know God because they have rejected Jesus Christ, His Son, and they stand condemned. Do you believe that that statement is Islamophobic?Vought: Absolutely not, Senator. I m a Christian, and I believe in a Christian set of principles based on my faith.Sanders: Forgive me, we just don t have a lot of time. Do you believe people in the Muslim religion stand condemned? Is that your view?Vought: Again, Senator, I m a Christian, and I wrote that piece in accordance with the statement of faith at Wheaton College.Sanders: I understand that. I don t know how many Muslims there are in America. Maybe a couple million. Are you suggesting that these people stand condemned? What about Jews? Do they stand condemned too?Vought: Senator, I m a Christian.Sanders: I understand you are a Christian, but this country [is] made of people who are not just I understand that Christianity is the majority religion, but there are other people of different religions in this country and around the world. In your judgment, do you think that people who are not Christians are going to be condemned?Vought: Thank you for probing on that question. As a Christian, I believe that all individuals are made in the image of God and are worthy of dignity and respect regardless of their religious beliefs. I believe that as a Christian that s how I should treat all individuals.Sanders: Do you think that s respectful of other religions?I would simply say, Mr. Chairman, that this nominee is really not someone who this country is supposed to be about. I will vote no. CAN THE US GOVERNMENT IMPOSE RELIGIOUS TESTS FOR PUBLIC OFFICE:The Constitution says the U.S. government can t impose religious tests for public office. But scholars say Sen. Bernie Sanders can without consequence apply his own religious rubric in opposing a presidential nominee who believes non-Christians risk going to hell.The Vermont independent, who is Jewish but not particularly religious, grilled Russell Vought, nominee to be deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget, on Wednesday, focusing on an article he wrote that said Muslims do not know God because they have rejected Jesus Christ his Son, and they stand condemned. Sanders asked if that view was Islamophobic, and if Jews also stand condemned.Vought responded that he is a Christian. In your judgment, do you think that people who are not Christians are going to be condemned? Sanders asked. Vought began to answer before Sanders interrupted, asking if that viewpoint was respectful of other religions. National Review columnist David French writes that Sanders was imposing a religious test for public office in direct violation of Article VI of the United States Constitution and that he was objecting to entirely orthodox Christian beliefs about access to heaven.Constitutional scholars say Sanders, who said he will vote against Vought, may violate the spirit of the Constitution, but arguably not Article VI, which states: no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States. No senator should vote against a nominee based on his or her religion. It would violate the spirit if not the letter of the Constitution. But senators can vote against nominees for any reason or no reason at all. There would be no legal consequence, and the nominee would have no forum for complaint. Allan Vestal of Drake University Law School says the Constitution s religious-test ban does not provide a mechanism for inquiring into the motivations of individual senators and representatives in the votes they cast. There is no constitutional constraint on yea or nay votes, so yes he can do it, agrees Richard Epstein, a New York University law professor.Read more: US News | 0 |
8,433 | Republicans Just RUINED Trump’s Plan To Bully The Government Into Funding Border Wall (DETAILS) | Donald Trump has just been screwed over by members of his own party, thanks to his insistence on a border wall that is absolutely pointless and won t actually work.At Congress has been at a standstill over including Trump s border wall in government spending, Republican lawmakers are now agreeing with Democrats by supporting a clean spending bill so the government won t have to stop working on Friday. This push takes Trump s border wall out of the running for funding.Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) said: Ideological litmus tests on a spending bill like this simply create partisan roadblocks. With so many pressing issues facing our country, we need to work together to keep the lights on and avoid another expensive shutdown that weakens not only our economy but our national security. Mick Mulvaney, who is Trump s budget director, tried to make a deal with Congress by promising that Obamacare would get more funding if Trump s wall was funded. Clearly okay with manipulating Americans into funding a wall that no one wants, Mulvaney said: We d offer them $1 of CSR [Obamacare] payments for $1 of wall payments. Right now that s the offer that we ve given to our Democratic colleagues. No one in the Democratic party actually wants this border wall to be funded and Chuck Schumer pointed out exactly why. These are points that even Republicans can t argue with:A spokesman for Schumer blasted the Trump administration for trying to use Obamacare to bribe lawmakers into funding Trump s wall: The White House gambit to hold hostage health care for millions of Americans, in order to force American taxpayers to foot the bill for a wall that the President said would be paid for by Mexico is a complete non-starter.The US government is supposed to take care of its citizens and, according to the President, Mexico is supposed to pay for the wall. If the administration would drop their 11th hour demand for a wall that Democrats, and a good number of Republicans oppose, Congressional leaders could quickly reach a deal. Trump needs to just admit that the border wall he promised his brainless supporters was a flawed idea, and it is only going to cost America in the end.Featured image via Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images | 0 |
8,434 | Trump Supreme Court nominee Gorsuch seen in the mold of Scalia | Federal appeals court judge Neil Gorsuch, the U.S. Supreme Court pick of President Donald Trump, is a conservative intellectual known for backing religious rights and seen as very much in the mold of Antonin Scalia, the justice he was chosen to replace. Gorsuch, who has not shied away from needling liberals on occasion, is 49 and could influence the high court for decades to come in the lifetime post, if confirmed by the Republican-led Senate. He is the youngest Supreme Court nominee since Republican President George H.W. Bush in 1991 picked Clarence Thomas, who was 43 at the time. DON’T MISS For hardline West Bank settlers, Jared Kushner's their man He currently serves as a judge on the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver, the city where he was born. He was appointed to that post in 2006 by Republican President George W. Bush. Gorsuch, who is white, adds little diversity to the court compared with the justices appointed by Democratic President Barack Obama, both of whom were women, one becoming the first Latina justice. But he offers geographical diversity to a court dominated by justices from the east and west coasts. As an Episcopalian, he would be the only Protestant on the court, which has three Jewish justices and five Catholics. EXCLUSIVE Poll: A third of Americans think travel ban will make them safer Gorsuch is seen by analysts as a jurist similar to Scalia, who died on Feb. 13, 2016. Scalia, praised by Gorsuch as “a lion of the law,” was known not only for his hard-line conservatism but for interpreting the U.S. Constitution based on what he considered its original meaning, and laws as written by legislators. Like Scalia, Gorsuch is known for sharp writing skills. “It is the role of judges to apply, not alter, the work of the people’s representatives,” Gorsuch said on Tuesday at the White House event announcing the nomination in remarks that echoed Scalia’s views. Trump, a Republican, had the chance to nominate Gorsuch because the Republican-led U.S. Senate last year refused to consider Obama’s nominee, appeals court judge Merrick Garland. Democrats, angered by the treatment of Garland, and opposing Gorsuch’s conservative views, may seek to block his nomination. Trump may have favored Gorsuch for the job in hopes of a smoother confirmation process than for other potential candidates such as appeals court judge William Pryor, who has called the 1973 Supreme Court ruling legalizing abortion “the worst abomination of constitutional law in our history.” The federal government is familiar territory for Gorsuch, who is the son of Anne Burford, the first woman to head the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. She served as Republican President Ronald Reagan’s top environmental official but resigned in 1983, just 22 months into the job, amid a fight with Congress over documents on the EPA’s use of a fund created to clean up toxic waste dumps nationwide. She was criticized by environmentalists for cutting the agency’s enforcement efforts against polluters and slowing payments for cleaning up toxic waste. The high court is also familiar ground for Gorsuch, who served as a clerk for two justices including a current member of the court, Anthony Kennedy, a conservative who often casts a deciding vote in close decisions. If confirmed, he would become the first clerk to join a former boss on the Supreme Court. Gorsuch also served as a clerk for Justice Byron White, a John F. Kennedy appointee, who retired from the court in 1993. Gorsuch has strong, Ivy League academic qualifications: attending Columbia University and, like several of the other justices on the court, Harvard Law School, graduating the same year as Obama. He completed a doctorate in legal philosophy at Oxford University, spent several years in private practice and worked in George W. Bush’s Justice Department. In a 2005 article in the conservative National Review magazine, Gorsuch criticized American liberals’ “overweening addiction to the courtroom” to implement a social agenda “on everything from gay marriage to assisted suicide.” In his Senate confirmation hearing for his appellate court judgeship, he said the point of the article could be applied to groups across the political spectrum. In 2013, Gorsuch played a role in a high-profile ruling involving arts-and-crafts retailer Hobby Lobby, allowing owners of private companies to object on religious grounds to an Obamacare provision requiring employers to provide health insurance covering birth control for women. The decision, later upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court, said the provision violated a federal law called the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. In a concurrence, Gorsuch expressed sympathy for the choice faced by the evangelical Christian owners of the company “between exercising their faith or saving their business.” Gorsuch also criticized an important legal doctrine that directs courts to defer to federal agencies’ interpretation of statutes. Last August, in a case over immigration rules, Gorsuch called the doctrine the “elephant in the room” that concentrates federal power “in a way that seems more than a little difficult to square with the Constitution.” He has written extensively on the topic of assisted suicide and euthanasia, arguing against legalization. In written questions related to his Senate confirmation hearings, he was asked whether his writings would make him biased in any case on the matter before him. He said his personal views would play no role in his decisions as a judge. Gorsuch is married with two teenage daughters, and lives outside of Boulder, Colorado. Friends and former clerks said he was a lover of the outdoors, describing him as an excellent skier, a fly fisherman and a runner. “We used to joke that he should be the face of Colorado tourism,” former Gorsuch clerk Jane Nitze said. | 1 |
8,435 | U.S.-backed SDF says Raqqa campaign in final stages | BEIRUT (Reuters) - The U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) said on Wednesday its campaign to capture Raqqa from Islamic State (IS) was in its final stages and its fighters had seized 80 percent of the city. In a statement, the SDF said it had opened a new front against IS on the northern edge of Raqqa, describing this as a feature of the final stages of the Euphrates Wrath campaign, which is nearing its end . | 1 |
8,436 | Obama trip to Cuba not affected by cancellation of tentative Kerry visit: White House | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama’s visit to Cuba later this month will not be affected by the cancellation of tentative plans for Secretary of State John Kerry to visit the island nation for human rights talks beforehand, the White House said on Friday. The top U.S. diplomat told a congressional hearing on Feb. 23 that he might be in Cuba for a dialogue on human rights before the president’s scheduled trip March 21-22. But officials said on Thursday that Kerry’s visit had been canceled amid concerns over Cuba’s human rights record. The White House said on Friday that Kerry’s decision would not affect Obama’s visit, and that Kerry would travel to Cuba with the president. | 1 |
8,437 | Scaramucci's SkyBridge sells itself, investment team to stay put | BOSTON/BEIJING (Reuters) - The hedge fund investment firm founded by Anthony Scaramucci said it will sell a majority of itself to RON Transatlantic EG and an arm of Chinese aviation and tourism conglomerate HNA Group, four days after Scaramucci took a position in President-elect Donald Trump’s administration. SkyBridge Capital announced the deal on Tuesday. Terms of the sale, which is expected to close in the second quarter of 2017, were not disclosed. For HNA Group, which announced about $20 billion of deals in 2016 alone, the stake purchase through its financial arm HNA Capital represents the latest move into financial asset management. Last week, HNA said it would spend $460 million to purchase New Zealand asset finance firm UDC. “Our investment in SkyBridge is an important step in HNA Capital’s strategy to build a global asset management business,” Guang Yang, CEO for HNA Capital U.S., said in a statement. The deal comes as HNA Group is rapidly expanding in the United States, where authorities have stepped up scrutiny of Chinese state-backed deals. HNA Group, best known as the owner of Hainan Airlines Co, announced in October that it will fork out $6.5 billion to purchase a 26 percent stake in hotel chain Hilton Worldwide Holdings Inc. HNA’s Avolon Holdings also agreed that month to buy CIT Group’s aircraft leasing assets worth $10 billion. The $12 billion SkyBridge’s investment management team, lead by Ray Nolte, will continue to run the company, offering clients access to hedge funds such as Daniel Loeb’s Third Point, Michael Vranos’ Ellington Management Group and Steven Tananbaum’s GoldenTree Asset Management LP. Scaramucci, who founded SkyBridge in 2005 and joined forces with Nolte five years later when he bought Citigroup Alternative Investments Hedge Fund Management Group, will no longer be affiliated with the firm or its well-known industry conference, the SkyBridge Alternatives Conference. Known on Wall Street as the “Mooch”, Scaramucci announced on Friday that he would be joining the White House staff as an adviser and public liaison to government agencies and businesses. Word spread among bankers in mid-December that he had put the company up for sale as he was setting his sights on a position in Washington. HNA Capital (U.S.), a unit of HNA Capital, and RON Transatlantic already owned a minority stake in SkyBridge. Between the two, the new majority owners are involved in beer brewing, tourism, logistics and financial services. “Now, together with the world-class resources and networks of HNA and Transatlantic, we feel the ‘sky’ is the limit for how far we can take SkyBridge,” George Hornig, Chief Executive of RON Transatlantic Financial Holdings, said in the statement. The SkyBridge Alternatives Conference, called SALT, grew into one of the industry’s biggest hedge fund conferences as Scaramucci got former U.S. presidents, generals and money managers, along with thousands of others to join him for days of lectures and sunning by the pool in Las Vegas. The conference will be spun off as a standalone entity, the company said. | 1 |
8,438 | This Hilarious Campaign Ad Shows Voters How They Can Avoid Scandalous Elected Officials | In Michigan, the upcoming election in 2018 presents voters with an interesting option: They could, for the first time, have an all-female ticket for every major office being contested. Senator Debbie Stabenow is up for re-election, and odds are good that the nominees for Governor, Attorney General, and Secretary of State will all be women.At least one of those candidates thinks that s a very good thing. Democratic candidate for AG Dana Nessel has produced a campaign ad that capitalizes on the benefits of being female when it comes to running for public office. Namely, the fact that she doesn t have a d*ck to wave at every passerby.With the wave of allegations over the last few weeks, beginning with the outing of movie mogul Harvey Weinstein as a total pervert and a sexual predator, it seems like everywhere you look there s someone else being ousted from their position or job for having at least acted like a pig and in some cases the allegations are even worse.Of course, not everyone is suffering from the paradigm shift that has stoked bravery in women across America and around the world. The highest office in the country is, of course, occupied by a man who s been accused by at least 19 women of everything from sexual harassment to actual inappropriate physical touching. And the open US Senate seat in Alabama is currently being contested by, on the Democratic side, the guy who successfully prosecuted the 1963 bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham that killed four young black girls, and on the Republican side, a guy who s accused of pursuing, dating, and touching teenage girls as young as 14 when he was an Assistant District Attorney in his 30 s.Dana Nessel wants to help you avoid all of that unseemly contact with potentially predatory men by simply not being one: [W]hen you re choosing Michigan s next attorney general, ask yourself this: Who can you trust most not to show you their penis in a professional setting? Is it the candidate who doesn t have a penis? I d say so. Watch the amazing ad here:Featured image via Bill Pugliano/Getty Images | 0 |
8,439 | MSNBC Just Fact Checked Trump’s Voter Fraud Lies In Real Time And It Was GLORIOUS (VIDEO) | Although most of America did not want Donald Trump to be the country s next President, many of us were holding on to hope that we might see an improved version of what we witnessed during the former reality TV star s presidential campaign. Unfortunately, Trump and his team are proving to be worse than we thought, and they re only churning out more fear mongering and lies during his first week in office.New White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer has continuously been backing up Trump s voter fraud claims since starting his new position. Trump has been trying to convince America that millions of illegal immigrants voted in the 2016 election, and Spicer has doubled down on those comments recently. Fortunately, the media has been on top of it, obviously frustrated at the lack of transparency from the new President. As Spicer lied his ass off on national television, MSNBC s Katy Tur fact-checked him in real time, and it was pretty amazing. Despite having zero actual evidence that voter fraud occurred, Spicer said: I think there s been studies that came from Pew in 2008 that showed fourteen percent of people who voted were not citizens. There are other studies that have been presented to him. It s a belief he maintains The President does believe that, I think he s stated that before, and stated his concern of voter fraud and people voting illegally during the campaign and continues to maintain that belief based on studies and evidence people have brought to him. Here s what Tur said as she fact-checked Spicer on air: We want to do a little bit of fact checking on that statement because the White House now is referring to the same research that the campaign had referred to, and the transition had referred to. One was a Washington Post commissioned study which the Washington Post itself debunked, and the other one was a Pew study from 2012, which is actually from 2008, which said that approximately 24 million one in every eight people are on voter registrations in the United States that no longer valid and they are significantly inaccurate. Listing people who had died in the past, obviously, on the voter rolls. It doesn t mention anything about undocumented immigrants, so their basis of evidence isn t quite correct at all. You can watch that brilliant moment below:Here s @KatyTurNBC with an instant fact-check after Spicer said Trump believes millions voted illegally based on studies and evidence pic.twitter.com/Eb10dxtmqd Bradd Jaffy (@BraddJaffy) January 24, 2017MSNBC is far from the only network to prove Trump wrong. CNN, the media outlet that Trump has dubbed fake news, ran a headline that said, Trump believes millions voted illegally, WH says but provides no proof .Hopefully, we re going to see more real-time fact checking from the media, because Trump and his team are the most dishonest administration we ve ever seen.Featured image by Joe Raedle via Getty Images | 0 |
8,440 | Malawi vigilante arrests rise to 200 in vampire scare | LILONGWE (Reuters) - Police in Malawi have arrested 200 suspected members of vigilante mobs that have been killing people they believe are vampires, a spokesman said on Tuesday. Nine people have been killed since mid-September in southern Malawi where there is a widespread belief in witchcraft. The violence has prompted the United Nations and the U.S. embassy to declare some parts of the country no-go zones. The attacks spread last week to Blantyre, Malawi s second largest city where a 22-year-old man was stoned then burned to death and another was stoned to death. Both were accused of bloodsucking, although medical experts deny the existence of vampirism in Malawi. Amos Daka, head of the Medical Society of Malawi, said his group was not aware that any one has adequate clinical evidence to support any of the many claims to date. President Peter Mutharika has visited parts of the country affected by the violence. This month, the United Nations pulled staff out of two areas in southern Malawi. | 1 |
8,441 | Hackers targeted Trump campaign, Republican Party groups: sources | (Reuters) - Hackers targeted the computer systems of presidential candidate Donald Trump and Republican Party organizations as well as Democratic Party networks, sources familiar with investigations into the attacks said. At least one Trump staff member’s email account was infected with malware in 2015 and sent malicious emails to colleagues, according to one insider for the Republican candidate’s campaign and an outside security expert. It was unclear whether or not the hackers actually gained access to campaign computers. In the past month, U.S. security officials have said that starting last year, hackers infiltrated computers of the Democratic National Committee (DNC), the presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton and her party’s congressional fundraising committee. U.S. officials said they have concluded that Russia or its proxies were responsible, leading to calls by some Democrats and cyber security officials for the Obama administration to blame Russia publicly. Kremlin officials have dismissed the allegations as absurd, but there is anxiety in Washington over the possibility that a foreign power might be using hacked information to meddle in the Nov. 8 U.S. election. The Trump campaign has hired security firm CrowdStrike, which also is assisting the Democratic National Committee, according to one person briefed on the matter. The company declined to comment.A different outside security firm was hired to examine software the Trump and Clinton campaigns use to manage mailings, electronic outreach and other campaign efforts, another person who was briefed on the issue said.A spokeswoman for Trump’s campaign declined to comment. A spokesman for the Republican National Committee could not immediately be reached for comment. The tools and techniques used to hack Republican targets resemble those employed in attacks on Democratic Party organizations, including the DNC and Clinton’s campaign organization, two sources said. That has led U.S. officials to reach a preliminary assessment that Russia’s military and civilian intelligence agencies or their proxies have targeted both political parties. Attempts to hack into Republican political organizations over an extended period were reported in intelligence bulletins circulated by U.S. agencies, four sources said. They did not disclose the identities of the organizations. Two U.S. security officials said the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security have offered assistance to both political parties in identifying possible intrusions and upgrading their defenses against what one of the officials called “constantly evolving threats.” | 1 |
8,442 | JUST IN: SUSPECTED LEAKER and “Close Confidant” of James Comey Has Been Reassigned From His Post As TOP FBI Lawyer [VIDEO] | On December 5, 2017, Circa s Sara Carter warned there would be a major shake-up at the FBI after the Inspector General s report was completed. So far, Sara Carter has been right on everything she s reported on, as it relates to the Mueller investigation. In the video below, Carter tells Sean Hannity why she believes the FBI will have a major shake-up soon there are 27 leakers that the IG is looking at! Yes, 27 leakers!Sara Carter: We re going to see parts of that report before December (end of the month). We re going to see other parts of his report coming out after January. And they re looking at Peter Strzok. They re looking at Comey. They re looking at 27 leakers. It would not surprise me if there was a shake-up at the FBI and a housecleaning.Watch:Is the FBI s former top attorney, James Baker, one of the first leaker casualties? James Baker, the FBI s leading lawyer who was a confidante of fired FBI Director James Comey, has been reassigned from his post, as the agency s top personnel are under high scrutiny.Baker told colleagues he will assume different duties for the bureau, the Washington Post reported.Baker oversees the bureau s Office of General Counsel and has received such awards as the George H.W. Bush Award for Excellence in counter-terrorism in 2006.He also was the subject of a leak investigation over the summer after Attorney General Jeff Sessions ordered a crackdown on leakers.The FBI had no comment when asked why Baker was being reassigned and what he would be doing.His reassignment comes at a time of increased scrutiny and pressure on the agency, following the release of private text messages between agents working in the Hillary Clinton email probe. Daily Mail Three sources, with knowledge of the investigation, told Circa that Baker is the top suspect in an ongoing leak investigation, but Circa has not been able to confirm the details of what national security information or material was allegedly leaked.A federal law enforcement official with knowledge of ongoing internal investigations in the bureau told Circa, the bureau is scouring for leakers and there s been a lot of investigations. The revelation comes as the Trump administration has ramped up efforts to contain leaks both within the White House and within its own national security apparatus.Baker is a close confidant of former FBI Director James Comey, and recent media reports suggested he was reportedly advising the then-FBI director on legal matters following private meetings the former director had in February with President Trump in the Oval Office.Baker was appointed to the FBI s general counsel by Comey in 2014 and has had a long and distinguished history within the intelligence community. | 0 |
8,443 | U.S. environmental agency to offer buyouts to cut staff: memo | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency plans to offer some employees a buyout program to reduce staff, according to an internal memo seen by Reuters, as President Donald Trump proposes slashing the agency’s budget and workforce to reduce regulation. The memo sent by acting Deputy Administrator Mike Flynn on Thursday said the agency wants to complete the buyout program by September. It did not give a dollar figure for the buyouts or say how many employees it hoped would take the offer. The memo was sent to all employees at the same time EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt joined Trump at the White House to announce that the United States would withdraw from the Paris climate agreement. “Early outs and buy outs ... can help us realign our workforce to meet changing mission requirements and move toward new models of work,” the memo said. “The authority encourages voluntary separations and helps the Agency complete workforce restructuring with minimal disruption to the workforce.” The EPA would see the biggest cuts of any federal agency in Trump’s 2018 budget proposal, with a 31 percent reduction in budget and the elimination of over 3,200 employees. The EPA employs about 15,000 people. In the memo, Flynn said the White House Office of Management and Budget must still approve the buyout plan. The EPA and other federal agencies have offered buyouts to employees from time to time in the past. Details on the selection criteria for employees in the pool were still being worked out, the memo said. Career staff at the EPA have been on edge since Trump took office, as the president vowed to undo major EPA air and water regulations in his first 100 days. Pruitt, who was an instrumental voice in convincing Trump to withdraw the United States from the Paris climate accord, doubts that human beings drive climate change and believes the agency should pare back regulations on the energy industry. The agency has also removed references to climate change and links to key EPA climate change reports from its website. | 1 |
8,444 | Clash between military and suspected gang leaves nine dead in southern Mexico | MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - The Mexican military fought back against an armed attack in the violent southwestern state of Guerrero on Saturday night, leaving eight suspected gang members and one soldier dead, authorities said on Sunday. At around 11 p.m., troops were making their rounds in the city of Teloloapan, about 155 miles (250 km) from Mexico City, when they came under gunfire from suspected gang members dressed in fake military uniforms, Roberto lvarez Heredia, a spokesman for the Guerrero Coordinating Group, said in a statement. The military secured two vans painted in camouflage, weapons and uniforms, authorities said. A soldier was wounded in the confrontation and died afterward from his injuries. The public prosecutor s office in Guerrero, home to the resort city of Acapulco on Mexico s Pacific coast, has begun an investigation into the attack, authorities said. Violence has spiked in Guerrero over the past decade as a growing number of criminal gangs vie for control of crops of opium poppies and for drug-trafficking routes. | 1 |
8,445 | Yazidis caught in 'political football' between Baghdad, Iraqi Kurds | SINJAR, Iraq (Reuters) - Since Iraqi forces pushed the Kurds out of the Yazidis mountainous heartland of Sinjar in northern Iraq in October, residents are wondering what could happen to them next. Food and money are in short supply since aid organizations stopped delivery after Iraq s advance. Buildings collapsed in the fighting and of those still standing, many are marked with bullets and littered with IEDs. Water and electricity barely work. The Yazidis, whose beliefs combine elements of several ancient Middle Eastern religions, have long been viewed with suspicion and repeatedly persecuted by other groups in Iraq. In 2014, more than 3,000 were killed by Islamic State militants in a campaign described by the United Nations as genocidal. Now the land they have lived on for centuries is caught up in a tug of war between Baghdad and Iraq s Kurds, who had controlled it since the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003. We re trapped in this game of political football, between Iraq and the Kurds, said a Yazidi resident of Sinjar, Kamal Ali. But neither of them cares about our future. The militias have hoisted Iraq s tricolor flag over government buildings and any remaining Kurdish flags have been scrawled over with the words Iraq and Allahu Akbar , the blazing sun at its center scribbled over in black marker. Sinjar is politically important because it s in the disputed territories, ethnically mixed areas across northern Iraq, long the subject of a constitutional dispute between Baghdad and the Kurds, who both claim them. Sinjar fell under the Kurds control, despite lying outside Iraqi Kurdistan s recognized borders. Baghdad did little to challenge the arrangement until its October offensive, launched to punish the Kurds for their Sept. 25 independence referendum. Iraqi forces have seized the disputed areas the Kurds had expanded into including Sinjar. The referendum reignited long-simmering tensions over geographic dominance in the oil-rich north, between Baghdad and the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG), who fought side by side to defeat Islamic State. The Yazidis are divided about what should happen now. Some are glad the Kurds have gone and see an opportunity for increased autonomy now that they are under federal control following the offensive by Iraq s security forces last October. Kurdish forces handed over Sinjar without a fight to the Lalesh Brigades, a Yazidi militia backed by Baghdad s Shiite paramilitary forces (PMF). Most Yazidis speak a Kurdish dialect, but many don t see themselves as ethnically Kurdish. We re happy the Kurds have left, said Abu Sardar, a 47-year-old Yazidi man. We re Yazidis we re not Kurds, we do not want to be part of Kurdistan. Like others, Abu Sardar complained that the Kurds forced him to vote in the Kurdish referendum, accusations the KRG denies. He returned two months ago to the ruins of his home in the Sinuni district of Sinjar and expressed bitter disappointment that little had changed since he left in 2014: hospitals and schools remain shuttered while the city is still mostly rubble. He hopes that Baghdad and its militias will rebuild Sinjar. Others lament the Kurds departure. The KRG and allied Yazidi groups hold former Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki responsible for the campaign by Islamic State. They say his troops desertion of Mosul allowed militants to capture billions of dollars in weapons later used to attack the minority. Yazidi commander Qassem Shesho says Iraq s government is too sectarian and dislikes the Yazidis as much as Islamic State. Like many others, he blames the Kurds for the attack by Islamic State. But they re all we ve got, he said. Shesho is allied to Iraqi Kurdistan s ruling Kurdistan Democratic Party, even though the Kurds cut his fighters salaries after the Lalesh Brigades took over Sinjar. Some days, residents say, there are only bones in Sinjar. Nearly 50 mass graves have been uncovered outside the town since 2014. Sinjar is a city of ghosts, said the Lalesh Brigades leader Ali Serhan Eissa, also known as Khal Ali. Tens of thousands of Yazidis fled the militant onslaught and headed for Mount Sinjar. Of those who didn t reach the mountain, about 3,100 were killed with more than half shot, beheaded, burned alive and disposed of in mass graves. Others were sold into sexual slavery or forced to fight, according to a report by the Public Library of Science journal PLoS Medicine. Some are still on the mountain, about to spend a third freezing winter in tents. Before the attack, Sinjar was home to about 400,000 people mainly Yazidis and Arab Sunnis. Only 15 percent of Yazidis have returned home, according to humanitarian estimates. Most Yazidis remain in IDP camps in the Kurdistan region, along with most of the area s displace Sunnis. Aid workers worry the camps will be closed if tensions between Baghdad and the Kurds flare up. The presence of fighters from Turkey s separatist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) further complicates the picture. Many Yazidis credit them with opening up a land route to allow those stranded on Mount Sinjar to escape the militants in 2014. The PKK entrenched itself in the community, even creating a local unit, the Sinjar Resistance Units (YBS) which controls multiple checkpoints around Sinjar. Turkey and neighboring Iran are closely watching the power shift in Sinjar. Tehran wants to secure this north-western region of Iraq as it sits on the border with Syria, while Turkey wants the region free of the outlawed PKK. | 1 |
8,446 | Former Republican presidential hopeful Carson to endorse Trump: Washington Post | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Former Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson, who dropped his bid last week, plans to endorse front-runner Donald Trump on Friday morning, the Washington Post reported on Thursday, citing two people familiar with his thinking. The retired neurosurgeon agreed to the endorsement at a meeting with Trump at the billionaire’s Mar-a-Lago luxury club in Florida, the people said on condition of anonymity, according to the newspaper. (Reporting by Eric Walsh; Editing by Chris Reese) This article was funded in part by SAP. It was independently created by the Reuters editorial staff. SAP had no editorial involvement in its creation or production. | 1 |
8,447 | Russia's Lavrov to Iran's Zarif: Moscow committed to Iran nuclear deal | MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Friday told his Iranian counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif that Russia remains fully committed to the Iran nuclear deal, Russia s foreign ministry said in a statement. Lavrov told Zarif in a telephone conversation that Moscow was firmly determined to implement the deal in the form in which it was approved by the United Nations Security Council, the ministry said. | 1 |
8,448 | Donald Trump LIED About Supporting The Iraq War (AUDIO) | Donald Trump just got caught lying about one of his biggest claims as the South Carolina primary approaches.Throughout his campaign, Trump has hammered Jeb Bush over his brother George W. Bush s terrible decision to go to war with Iraq, a war that cost America trillions of dollars and thousands of lives.He has even claimed to be the only candidate in the GOP field who opposed the war before we invaded and he did so again during the GOP Debate on Saturday night. I m the only one on this stage that said, Do not go into Iraq. Do not attack Iraq, Trump declared. Nobody else on this stage said that. And I said it loud and strong. And I was in the private sector. I wasn t a politician, fortunately. But I said it, and I said it loud and clear, You ll destabilize the Middle East. That s exactly what happened. Trump repeated himself again on Thursday night during the GOP Town Hall event, even going so far as to say that George H. W. Bush dealt with Iraq the right way when we went to war against Saddam Hussein in order to protect Kuwait in 1992.Up to this point, Trump s claims had gone unchallenged. But now an audio recording has popped up of a Trump interview with Howard Stern that blows both of Trump s claims about both wars in Iraq out of the water.As it turns out, Trump not only lied about his opposition to the Iraq invasion in 2003, he lied about believing that Operation Desert Storm was handled correctly. Are you for invading Iraq? Stern asked Trump point-blank back in 2002, a year before the first troops set foot in Iraq.TRUMP: Yeah, I guess so. I wish the first time it was done correctly. Here s the damning audio via Buzzfeed.And when Anderson Cooper asked Trump about the Stern interview on Thursday, here is what Trump had to say. I could have said that. Nobody asked me that. I wasn t a politician. It was probably the first time anyone has asked me that question. When you re in the private sector, you get asked things, and you re not a politician, and probably the first time I was asked. By the time the war started, I was against it, and shortly thereafter, I was really against. Note to Donald: It doesn t matter if you were a politician or not. A lie is a lie and your time in the private sector does not exempt you from being called out for it, nor does it excuse it. Featured image: Flickr | 0 |
8,449 | biblical beginnings | by jason easley on fri oct th at am it is a cruel reality of american electoral politics that the losers of presidential campaigns get banished from national discourse and that process has already begun for donald trump share on twitter print this post
it is a cruel reality of american electoral politics that the losers of presidential campaigns get banished from national discourse and that process has already begun for donald trump
despite the fact that trump has been claiming that the presidential election is going to be rigged stolen or unfair his cries are beginning to fall on deaf ears the latest washington post tracking poll found that confidence that votes will be counted correctly grew by points from the number of respondents who believed that voter fraud occurs somewhat often has dropped from and those expressing concerns that all votes will be counted accurately dropped from to even trump supporters are split on whether or not votes will be counted accurately
part of the shift is likely due to the effective job that president obama did in addressing these concerns but it is most likely that voters are treating trump like the candidate who is going to lose the election
one of the best indicators of a presidential elections outcome as election day draws near is the question of who voters think will win
hillary clinton is dominant on the question of who voters believe will win the election which is a hint of the way that people are voting
the process of tuning out the losing candidate has a long history in the us two party system losing candidates who refuse to go away like sarah palin are viewed as annoying relics who refuse to acknowledge that their time is up
trumps fifteen minutes of fame on the national stage appear to be coming to an end his words can still poison and damage our country at a cultural level which is why he still needs to be discussed but as far as changing minds and winning an election it looks voters are in the process of banishing trump from the political island | 0 |
8,450 | CHELSEA CLINTON Confronted by Woman at Book Signing: “Can you sign this for my friend Juanita Broaddrick” [Video] | Watch what happens when Laura Loomer asks Chelsea Clinton to sign a copy of her book, She Persisted for her friend, Juanita Broaddrick: Because this book s for everyone, including women who have wanted to speak up but have been told to quiet down, can you sign it for a my friend Juanita Broaddrick? Because she s been silenced by your parents, especially Bill Clinton, who s a rapist. Can you sign it for her? The funny thing is that Chelsea was just offered a cool one million dollars to take a DNA test to prove her REAL dad is Webster Hubbell: Jones made the offer on the Wednesday edition of the Alex Jones Show while previewing an upcoming video showing Chelsea being confronted on her father s alleged rape of Juanita Broaddrick. We also have a woman confronting Chelsea Clinton who is now the spitting image of Webster Hubbell, no doubt, Jones said. In fact I ll offer Chelsea Clinton $1 million to the charity of her choice where she s looted billions out of Haiti and other places so she doesn t care a million dollars to the charity of her choice to have a third-party group do a maternity or a paternity test on her and you know she s Webster Hubbell. I mean you look at this new video we re gonna play when we come back, it is Webster Hubbell I mean it s Webster Hubbell. Those are some strong genes. I mean that is daddy s little girl right there. That is daddy s girl. That ain t Bill Clinton s girl, that s daddy s girl right there. I mean I ve never seen somebody with such a spitting image of their daddy. Read more: Info Wars | 0 |
8,451 | Shelling, air strikes as Philippine troops hunt militants in marshland | MANILA (Reuters) - Philippine troops shelled positions held by a small group of pro-Islamic State militants in southern marshland on Friday, as the military pushed on with a new offensive after the country s biggest urban battle in decades. The army estimated 2,000 villagers had been displaced by several days of operations in a region straddling two provinces on the island of Mindanao, as the army went after the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF), a small and splintered rebel group inspired by Islamic State. The latest operation follows the end last month of what was the Philippines biggest battle since World War Two, in which troops took five months to crush an alliance of Islamic State loyalists including BIFF fighters in Marawi City. The occupation of the city by the militants and their dogged resistance spread alarm in the region about the rise of extremism and radical aspirations to create an Islamic State caliphate. Captain Nap Alcarioto, spokesman for the 6th Infantry Division, said troops were shelling BIFF gunmen in support of ground attacks in an area of marshland between the provinces of Maguindanao and Cotobato, about 170 km (106 miles) from Marawi. We are still awaiting results of operations, he said. The army said it was fighting a BIFF faction led by Abu Toraypie, a man allied with the Maute group, the biggest militant group in an alliance that led the Marawi conflict. Toraypie and some of his men had escaped from Marawi and the army was trying to prevent them from regrouping, the army said. Military aircraft dropped bombs on another BIFF wing in a town close by. The BIFF broke away from the separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) a decade ago after becoming disillusioned with a protracted process with the government to grant autonomy to what is the mainly Catholic country s only predominantly Muslim region. Separately, army spokesman Major-General Restituto Padilla said Marawi was clear of militants who had been hiding in the ruins of the pummeled city, but unexploded munitions and booby traps had yet to be cleared. The last firefight we had was on November 5 when we killed nine terrorists, he told a news conference, adding all top militant leaders had been killed, although that was subject to DNA confirmation. | 1 |
8,452 | Three dead after suspected gas leak at PetroChina refinery: media | BEIJING (Reuters) - Three workers were killed and six others injured during a suspected gas leak at a PetroChina-operated refinery in Dalian on Saturday evening, state media said on Monday. The men working for Henan Yanling Jingshun Petrochemical Machinery Equipment Co Ltd were carrying out maintenance at the West Pacific Petrochemical Corp (WEPEC) plant, in northeast Liaoning province. They were thought to have been poisoned by hydrogen sulphide, a highly toxic gas found in natural gas and crude petroleum, the China News report said. A PetroChina spokesperson could not immediately comment on the accident. A WEPEC official said production at the 200,000-barrels per day plant had not been affected by the accident. The Dalian government is investigating the cause of the incident, the China News report said. | 1 |
8,453 | POLL SHOWS WHICH Candidate Will Benefit Most From Rubio’s Exit | If Rubio would have dropped out a month ago, we might have a very different outcome today Marco Rubio s loss is Ted Cruz s gain, a new poll shows.The Texas senator will benefit most from Rubio s exit from the presidential race, according to new Morning Consult polling.Among 412 Rubio supporters polled, 47 percent support Cruz as a second choice.Twenty-seven percent of respondents said they would back Ohio Gov. John Kasich if Rubio dropped out and only 13 percent of Rubio backers said they d support front-runner Donald Trump.Nine percent said they d vote for someone else and 5 percent don t know.Morning Consult interviewed 8,732 registered voters from March 11 to 15, including 3,372 Republicans and Republican-leaning independents. Via: NY Post | 0 |
8,454 | Catalonia refuses to send weekly accounts to Madrid before referendum | MADRID (Reuters) - Catalonia will stop sending weekly financial accounts to Madrid, defying a demand by Spain s central government that the region prove it is not using public money to promote an independence drive. The decision follows a series of moves to block a Catalan referendum on self-rule, planned for Oct. 1, which Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy s government has declared illegal. In a letter dated Sept. 13, Catalan Deputy Governor Oriol Junqueras told Spanish Budget Minister Cristobal Montoro the region would no longer comply with the obligation to submit its accounts every week. He said the arrangement implied political control that is not related to the objectives of budget stability or to the purposes of state legislation in this matter . Madrid ordered Catalonia to start providing the weekly data in July. The government warned the region would lose access to some public funds if it was found to be using state money to organize the vote. All of Spain s regions pay taxes to the central government, and are then given a quota to spend on health, education and infrastructure. Catalonia, which has one of the strongest regional economies, says the system is unfair. After the referendum was announced, Madrid warned Catalonia it risked losing access to a separate funding program, set up in 2012 when economic crisis hammered regional budgets, if it failed to provide weekly accounts. Junqueras said in his letter that his administration was committed to financial stability and would still collaborate with Montoro s ministry, and continue to account for their spending every month. The will of the (Catalan) government is to continue to focus on dialogue and the exercise of democracy as a way to resolve the debate on political relations between Catalonia and Spain, the letter said. Catalonia accounts for around 20 percent of Spain s gross domestic product and has received some 70 billion euros ($83 billion) in funding from Madrid since 2012. | 1 |
8,455 | COINTEL PRO: Are ‘Anti-Fascist’ Media Personalities Playing to the Cameras? | 21st Century Wire says In this age of hyper-politicized mass media, it s becoming harder to differentiate between those who are acting for the cameras, and genuine political protesters. Considering the FBI s own documented history of infiltrating left-wing activists groups in America, is it possible we are witness to some staged performances again?Fox New s Tucker Carlson interviews Yvette Felarca, a self-described middle school teacher from Berkley and leader of the radical socialist Anti-Fascist flash mob mobilization organization known as By Any Means Necessary or BAMN. In this interview, Felarca can be seen openly advocating for physical violence against anyone, or any speech, whom she or her activist group deems as a fascist. Earlier this month, Felarca was one of the media faces of the UC Berkeley unrest which sprung up over an event hosted by gay conservative personality Milo Yiannopoulos. According to Felarca, Alt-Right speaker Yiannopoulos should not be allowed to speak in public. Watch her adroit, and intense performance from last night here: Yvette Felarca first gained media exposure after previously leading an alleged counter-protest against a Fascist Rally at what was branded by the mainstream media as the Battle of Sacramento in July 2016. On its face, this protest looked very much a staged media event, perfectly scheduled ahead of time, and with activist actor Felarca playing the part of agent provocateur for the cameras. At the Sacramento event, supposed protesters on both sides were holding what appeared to be light weight wooden props, apparently meant to be fighting sticks. Felarca s leftist group were wearing face masks and balaclavas to conceal their identities, another strong indication that these are not real protesters, and could very well be activist actors playing for the cameras. What is perhaps the biggest give-away of the staged performance was the fact that the scores of police who were on site just stood back while what appeared to be violence and heavy fighting broke out, allowing it to carry on for quite some time which means that either they were not actually policing but supervising, or they were there as part of the backdrop for the media. It was a bizarre scene to say the least. Certainly, FBI programs like COINTELPRO which began in 1956, come to mind here.Watch the following montage of this media event: Watch what appears to be a well rehearsed, albeit overly dramatic, and borderline sociopathic TV performance here: Despite the comparatively small size of both the CP and the American SWP by the late 1950s and early 1960s, their members implantation in industrial workplaces, independent electoral campaigns, desegregation, and antiwar activities, as well as the bureau s fanatical obsession with communism, made them targets. New Left activists who were not only hampering the ability of the U.S. to fight in Vietnam, but also challenging ideological assumptions about women s roles, sexuality, and segregation garnered attention and harassment by the state as well. But the most disruptive and violent COINTELPRO operations in the period from the late 1960s into the mid-1970s were directed against the Black and Native American struggles.It was a general rule throughout the 1960s, that local police departments would devote at least 1 percent of their resources to surveillance and infiltration.13 These local agents, acting in cahoots with the feds, read the left-wing press and became familiar with the fact that organized leftists were involved in liberal and pacifist groups and that individuals were often radicalized by these ideas as well as by their own experiences of struggle. Media Lightning Rods As far as the FBI are concerned, traditionally their justification for managing radical rightwing persons as is with the FBI s PATCON program, or leftwing personalities as confidential informants as with the Weather Underground and other groups has always been that these colorful personalities were effective in attracting or recruiting the worst of the worst and therefore by attracting the most radical activists, the FBI would then be able to ensnare them in a sting operation in order to root out what the agency sees as potential threats by taking this dangerous person off the street or to avert a future domestic terrorist incident. This is also the same rationale applied to the use of informants to stir-up radical activity in Islamic mosques, and to entrap and convict future terrorists in the US.Certainly, Felarca plays a very unique dual protagonist-antagonist role in this very public political drama as a recruitment tool for the radical left into her political front organization, but also as a media object of scorn for the Alt Right and for conservative media outlets like FOX and others. Hers is an active role in increasing political tension and polarization in the US. In this tenuous post-election environment, her scathing rhetoric calls for violence will appeal the most extreme leftwing activists, while simultaneously giving some media (mainstream cultural) legitimacy to the most radical elements of the extreme left.Here agitator Felarca is allowed to start a physical fight which led to men kicking someone on the ground, and then police seem to recognize her before allowing her to leave the scene quietly: READ MORE COINTELPRO AT: 21st Century Wire COINTELPRO Files | 0 |
8,456 | WATCH! TRUMP SUPPORTER “BIG JOE” Surrounded By Women’s March In Los Angeles: “Political correctness is a disease!” [Video] | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPqrimR8GWw | 0 |
8,457 | Who are Paul Manafort and Rick Gates? | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Paul Manafort, a businessman and longtime Republican Party operative, surrendered on Monday to the Federal Bureau of Investigation to face the first charges produced by a special counsel investigation into alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Manafort and his associate Rick Gates were indicted by a federal grand jury. The 12-count indictment included conspiracy against the United States, conspiracy to launder money, being an unregistered agent of a foreign principal, making false and misleading statements and seven counts of failure to file reports of foreign banks and financial accounts. Both pleaded not guilty to the charges. The Kremlin has denied it meddled in the election campaign to try to tilt the vote in Trump’s favor. Trump has denied any collusion by his campaign. Who is Paul Manafort? Manafort is a veteran Republican operative who has worked as a Washington lobbyist and international political consultant. His former clients include authoritarian leaders such as the late Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines and Russian and Ukrainian businessmen and politicians. Manafort was a campaign manager for the Trump campaign in the summer of 2016. What does the indictment charge they did? The indictment against Manafort and Gates says they both generated tens of millions of dollars of income from Ukraine work and laundered money through scores of U.S. and foreign entities to hide payments from U.S. authorities between 2006 and through at least 2016. In June, Manafort and Gates retroactively registered with the Justice Department as foreign agents, in a Foreign Agents Registration Act filing that showed they earned $17.1 million for lobbying on behalf of the Party of Regions, a pro-Russian political party in Ukraine, between 2012 and 2014. The indictment said they concealed from the United States their work and revenue as agents of Ukrainian political parties. They used their wealth to lead a “lavish lifestyle” without paying taxes on the income, prosecutors said. The indictment says that more than $75 million flowed through Manafort’s and Gates’ offshore accounts. Manafort, the indictment said, laundered more than $18 million. The indictment also alleges Manafort and Gates, along with others, conspired to defraud the United States by “impeding, impairing, obstructing, and defeating the lawful governmental functions” of the Department of Justice and the Treasury Department between 2006 and 2017. Manafort was indicted on nine counts and Gates was indicted on eight counts. What are Manafort’s links to Trump? Manafort joined the Trump presidential campaign in March 2016 and later became campaign manager, but he was forced to resign in August as questions emerged about his previous work for the political party of the Kremlin-backed former Ukrainian president, Viktor Yanukovich. Business Insider reported that Manafort and Trump have been connected since the 1980s, when Trump hired Manafort’s lobbying firm to help the Trump Organization. In 2006, Manafort and his wife bought an apartment in Trump Tower in New York, which Manafort still owns and where he lives when he is in Manhattan, Business Insider reported. How do the charges relate to Trump? “It has nothing to do with the campaign or the allegations of collusion with Russia,” said Washington attorney John Dowd, who represents Trump in the Russia probe. A Trump confidante said: “As it relates to the president, this is nothing. All of the 12 counts of the indictment that came down today, all of it predates their tenure at the campaign.” The special counsel’s indictment says Manafort and Gates laundered the money through “scores of United States and foreign corporations, partnerships and bank accounts” from approximately 2006 through “at least 2016.” Who is Rick Gates? Rick Gates was Manafort’s deputy and business associate. According to two former high-level Trump staffers, Gates essentially functioned as the Trump campaign manager for more than two months, all while not collecting a paycheck. The New York Times reported in June that the Trump transition team had been ordered to preserve materials related to ongoing investigations into alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 election. According to the Times, the memo from the special counsel’s office to the former transition team also sought specific information on five people including Manafort and Gates. According to the indictment, between at least 2006 and 2015 Manafort and Gates acted as unregistered agents of the Ukrainian government, a Ukrainian political party that was headed by Ukraine’s then president, Yanukovich, and Yanukovich himself. The indictment said they both generated tens of millions of dollars in income as a result of their Ukraine work. Yanukovich has been living in exile in Russia since he was ousted by mass street protests in Kiev in 2014. His departure lit the fuse for Moscow’s annexation of Crimea and a separatist uprising in mainly Russian-speaking eastern Ukraine. The indictment said Gates aided Manafort in obtaining money from offshore accounts and that Gates used that money to pay for personal expenses including “his mortgage, children’s tuition, and interior decorating of his Virginia residence.” How significant is Gates’ arrest? The indictment lays out the extent of Gates’ involvement with Manafort going back years. That could potentially open the door for Gates to testify against Manafort and others in the future. David Sklansky, a professor at Stanford Law School and former federal prosecutor, said Gates could feel pressure to cooperate and provide testimony against Trump. | 1 |
8,458 | they said what find out what reba mcentire whoopi goldberg and pope francis have to say | email ever wonder whats on the mind of todays most notable people well dont miss our unbelievable roundup of the best and most talked about quotes of the day a lot of people dont know this but the bed isnt the reason chocolate melts when youre in bed its actually your hands holding the chocolate squeezing it close to your chest while you read under the covers some part of the equation had to give eventually i decided that i get the floor the chocolate gets the bed and i get my chocolate the perfect calculation neil degrasse tyson life is so fragile all it takes is one stray javelin and its over miranda lambert on the need for javelin reform checkers is a lot more fun if you pour a little water into each checker and get to sip it out as a little reward whenever you capture one hoda kotb | 0 |
8,459 | Protesters sentenced to jail in French 'Kung Fu cop' trial | PARIS (Reuters) - Youths who torched a police car and attacked the car driver with an iron bar as he fled the flames were sentenced to up to seven years in jail by a French court on Wednesday. Dozens of riot police were deployed outside the Paris courthouse where the judge announced his verdict, after a trial prompted by the most striking episode of ultra-violent street protests last year against labor law reforms. The case grabbed international attention in the run-up to this year s presidential election as politicians traded accusations of being soft on law and order - a flashpoint in a contest that far-right National Front chief Marine Le Pen ultimately lost to centrist candidate Emmanuel Macron. It also made headlines due to extensive TV coverage of an incident where a group of protesters mobbed a police car, smashed its windows and threw a flare inside, forcing the car s two occupants to bail out as flames engulfed the vehicle. The driver - dubbed Kung Fu cop by French media - became a subject of fascination after taking on one of the protesters who attacked him with an iron bar. He fended off the blows with arm strokes worthy of a martial arts master. His assailant was one of five people tried. He was sentenced to three years in prison. Another protester got seven years but is on the run and believed to be in Switzerland. The incident, in May 2016, was part of a wave of protests where gangs of mostly hooded youths engaged in running battles with riot police in the capital city and cities across France. The protests were sparked by labor law changes which several labor unions and leftist politicians said would damage worker rights and make it easier for employers to fire people. Macron, a former investment banker regarded as a business-friendly centrist, has since taken over but is also introducing further labor law reforms that have put hardline unions back on the warpath, although protests have not so far been on a similar scale to 2016 s demonstrations. | 1 |
8,460 | U.S. must consider broader Iran threats when formulating new strategy: Tillerson | LONDON (Reuters) - The United States must consider the full threat it says Iran poses to the Middle East when formulating its new policy toward Tehran, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said on Thursday, adding that Iran had breached the spirit of a 2015 nuclear deal. Tillerson, made the comments during a visit to Britain to see Prime Minister Theresa May and foreign minister Boris Johnson. The trip was billed as focusing on the relief effort after Hurricane Irma, how to respond to North Korea s nuclear test, and resolving the political deadlock in Libya. But he was outspoken in his criticism of Iran when asked whether he believed it was meeting the obligations of a 2015 international nuclear agreement designed to curb an Iranian nuclear program in return for lifting most Western sanctions. Tillerson cited the preface of the nuclear deal, which calls on Iran to contribute positively to regional security. In our view, Iran is clearly in default of these expectations ... through their actions to prop up the Assad regime (in Syria), to engage in malicious activities in the region, including cyber activities, aggressively developing ballistic missiles, he told a news conference. We have to consider the totality of Iran s activities and not let our view be defined solely by the nuclear agreement. He was speaking before the United States announced it had imposed sanctions on seven Iranian individuals and two entities, alleging involvement in either malicious cyber activities or enabling Tehran s ballistic missile program. U.S. President Donald Trump has previously expressed doubts about the nuclear deal, and in April his administration said it would review whether the lifting of sanctions against Iran was in the United States national security interest. Trump is weighing a strategy that could allow more aggressive U.S. responses to Iran s forces, its Shi ite Muslim proxies in Iraq and Syria, and its support for militant groups. Earlier on Thursday, a North Korean state agency threatened to reduce the United States to ashes and darkness for supporting a U.N. Security Council resolution and sanctions over its latest nuclear test. Tillerson said he was hopeful that China would decide to use the powerful tool of oil supplies to put pressure on Pyongyang, but conceded that it would be difficult to agree an oil embargo through the United Nations Security Council. North Korea carried out its sixth and largest nuclear test earlier this month. I am hopeful that China, as a great country, a world power, will decide on their own, will take it upon themselves to use that very powerful tool of oil supply to persuade North Korea to reconsider its current path towards weapons development, reconsider its approach to dialogue and negotiations in the future, he said. Commenting on violence in Myanmar against the minority Rohingya population, Tillerson said the country faced a defining moment. I think it is important that the global community speak out in support of what we all know the expectation is for the treatment of people regardless of their ethnicity, he added. This violence must stop, this persecution must stop. He said he understood that Myanmar s Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel prize laureate and de facto head of the government in Myanmar, was in a power-sharing agreement with the military and it was a complex situation in which she found herself. (Corrects seventh paragraph to say ballistic missile program, not nuclear program.) | 1 |
8,461 | New Report Shows 3.5 MILLION MORE ADULTS Registered To Vote Than Are Alive…Is This Why Leftist Media Predicted Hillary Would Win? [VIDEO] | WATCH the euphoric reaction of Clinton crony and ABC host George Stephanopoulos discuss the probability of Hillary winning the presidential election against candidate Trump with Nate Silver. According to Stephaopoulos, is rarely incorrect in his predictions. Was Silver considering the effect voter fraud would have on our elections that appears to be almost exclusively favoring Democrats?FAST FORWARD TO August, 2017, as America witnesses one report after anohter of unbelievable voter fraud and/or major voter discrepancies across several states in America. Americans are finally starting to understand how the Democrats, and their allies in the media were so certain that Hillary would win against the much more popular candidate Donald J. Trump:National Review Some 3.5 million more people are registered to vote in the U.S. than are alive among America s adult citizens. Such staggering inaccuracy is an engraved invitation to voter fraud.The Election Integrity Project of Judicial Watch a Washington-based legal-watchdog group analyzed data from the U.S. Census Bureau s 2011 2015 American Community Survey and last month s statistics from the federal Election Assistance Commission. The latter included figures provided by 38 states. According to Judicial Watch, eleven states gave the EAC insufficient or questionable information. Pennsylvania s legitimate numbers place it just below the over-registration threshold.My tabulation of Judicial Watch s state-by-state results yielded 462 counties where the registration rate exceeded 100 percent. There were 3,551,760 more people registered to vote than adult U.S. citizens who inhabit these counties. That s enough over-registered voters to populate a ghost-state about the size of Connecticut, Judicial Watch attorney Robert Popper told me.Take a look at the margin in battle ground states Trump won in 2016, in which Electoral College votes can be decided by incredibly narrow margins. Consider the multitude of ghost voters in:Colorado: 159,373Florida: 100,782Iowa: 31,077Michigan: 225,235New Hampshire: 8,211North Carolina: 189,721Virginia: 89,979(For a deeper dive into these data, please download my spreadsheet here.)President Donald J. Trump s supporters might be intrigued to learn that Hillary Clinton s margins of victory in Colorado (136,386) and New Hampshire (2,736) were lower than the numbers of ghost voters in those states. Clinton s fans should know that Trump won Michigan (10,704) and North Carolina (173,315) by fewer ballots than ghost voters in those states.It s past time to exorcise ghost voters from the polls.Watch Barack Obama criticize Donald Trump for questioning the integrity of the vote: | 0 |
8,462 | LIKE A BAD PENNY: OBAMAS CRASH Music Awards to Boast About Their Connection to Music Legend [Video] | THE OBAMAS ARE LIKE THE CLINTONS They just keep turning up like a bad penny. Who knows why they keep popping up everywhere but some say Michelle might run for POTUS in 2020 They must not have gotten the message in the 2016 election .GO AWAY! Note to Barack: STOP criticizing President Trump. You make yourself look like a bigger loser than you already are! It s not about you anymore!This appearance reminds us of the odd Oscars show when Michelle wore a new weave with bangs and a glam gown to give out the best picture award:Barack and Michelle Obama for some strange reason appeared at the 2017 American Music Awards, serving as a warm-up act for the winner of the life-time achievement award, Diana Ross:The Obamas discussed how important Ross s music is to them. When we heard Diana Ross was getting the lifetime achievement award, our first reaction was, she doesn t have it yet? Obama said in a pre-taped appearance. Her artistry resonates with folks of every race, background, and walk of life, Michelle Obama said. And today her voice is still as pure, her beauty is undeniable, and her showmanship is on point as back when she was a Supreme. WHY WE AWARDED HER THE PRESIDENTIAL MEDAL OF FREEDOM ???Obama said he and his wife s affinity for Ross is why he awarded her the presidential medal of freedom. We still listen to Diana around the house, Obama said. that s why we gave her the presidential medal of freedom last year. But, this is a big deal too. Diana Ross, we love you, Michelle said, with her husband echoing: We love you much. | 0 |
8,463 | BREAKING: It Looks Like Russia Hacked Our Voting Machines | Since Donald Trump won the Electoral College vote (and even months before that), Democrats have been focused on the fact that 17 intelligence agencies are all in agreement that Russia interfered with our election through propaganda and through hacking of the Democratic National Committee server. That can t be true, say Republicans. There s no evidence that Russia tampered with the voting machines (as if that s the only form of election manipulation), say Republicans. Now there is evidence of exactly that. While we don t yet know that any votes were flipped during the election, the evidence now says that they were hacking voting machines a few months before the election.According to an NSA document acquired by The Intercept, Russian military intelligence cyber-attacked a U.S. voting software supplier, using information gained in that attack to launch a voter registration-themed spear-phishing campaign targeting U.S. local government organizations. Russian General Staff Main Intelligence Directorate actors executed cyber espionage operations against a named U.S. company in August 2016, evidently to obtain information on elections-related software and hardware solutions, the document states. The operation gave the hackers persistent access to the targeted computers, allowing them to survey the victims for items of interest. Source: NewsweekThis happened in August, so at this time, the NSA says they don t know if Russians actually interfered at the ballot boxes, but, according to a watchdog group called Verified Voting, Russians very well could have prevented some people from voting. If someone has access to a state voter database, they can take malicious action by modifying or removing information, Pamela Smith, president of Verified Voting, told The Intercept. This could affect whether someone has the ability to cast a regular ballot or be required to cast a provisional ballot which would mean it has to be checked for their eligibility before it is included in the vote, and it may mean the voter has to jump through certain hoops such as proving their information to the election official before their eligibility is affirmed. Not only are things not looking good for Trump as subpoenas and possible criminal indictments are looming over an increasing number of people close to him, but this brings the legitimacy of the election back into focus. Right now, it s unclear what will happen if it s proven that Hillary Clinton would have won the election, but it s becoming increasingly clear that Trump does not belong there.Featured image via Adam Berry/Getty Images | 0 |
8,464 | Failure to pass UK's Brexit bill would create legal holes: minister | LONDON (Reuters) - Failure to pass the government s flagship piece of Brexit legislation through parliament will result in holes in the statute book and increased uncertainty, two junior British ministers said on Thursday. This bill is about how we leave, it s about delivering certainty and continuity in the law as we leave the European Union, said Steve baker, a minister in the Brexit department. If this bill were not to pass ... then of course there would be holes in the statute book. The result would be that the statute book would not function as intended. | 1 |
8,465 | House tax panel chair says expects vote on plan next week | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. House Republicans plan to bring their tax overhaul bill for a vote next week, U.S. House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady said on Tuesday, adding that he expects the plan to pass. “We’ll bring to the floor next week,” Brady told Fox News in an interview. “Our goal is to pass it next week out of the House.” | 1 |
8,466 | BREAKING: TODD PALIN In “Very Serious” Snowmobile Accident | Sarah Palin canceled a campaign stop for Donald Trump in Florida on Monday after her husband Todd was injured in a snowmobile crash in Alaska.A source told NBC News that Todd Palin was in a very serious crash Sunday night and is currently hospitalized in intensive care.In a brief unplanned appearance before Trump s afternoon event in Tampa, Palin referenced the little wreck and thanked audience members for their prayers. The former Alaska governor stopped by the Trump town hall in Tampa but canceled her other planned appearances with the GOP frontrunner, whom she endorsed earlier this year. She has been in contact with medical personnel and will be traveling back to Alaska today, the source said.Palin was scheduled to appear on Trump s behalf at noon ET in The Villages, Florida. Just minutes before its scheduled start time, the Trump campaign advised that the event had been canceled. Governor Palin wishes her best to Mr. Trump in the upcoming primaries, that earlier brief statement from the Trump campaign read.Read more: NBC | 0 |
8,467 | Big Time Racists Are Backing This Republican For President (VIDEO) | A super PAC backing Ted Cruz s presidential campaign is using the confederate flag to promote their candidate and attack another Republican.The Courageous Conservatives PAC is now calling primary voters in South Carolina with a robocall that attacks Donald Trump and Governor Nikki Haley for their supposed opposition to the pro-slavery symbol.The ad and robocall start with audio of Trump stating, Put it in a museum, let it go. It goes on to state that Trump supported Haley in removing the battle flag from a memorial on the statehouse grounds. People like Donald Trump are always butting their noses into other people s businesses. Trump talks about our flag like it s a social disease, the robocall said.It said Trump ridiculed our values and that voters should send Donald Trump and his New York values back to Manhattan. The creators of the ad said they have called 80,000 homes in the state so far with this racist message, in the hopes that it will cut into the considerable lead most show for Trump.The ad comes after the tragic shooting of black churchgoers by a white supremacist in Charleston pushed Haley and other lawmakers around the country to finally begin moving the flag from state property.The confederate flag was erected in many southern states in reaction to the civil rights movement in the 1950s and 60s.Of course the confederacy was a separatist movement that declared open war on the legitimate U.S. government in order to defend the evil institution of slavery, in which black people were kept as property and free labor.Despite the Republican Party s own report in which it indicated that its loss of the 2012 election came about in part due to its candidate s inability to reach out to racial minorities, there is still a strong base of support within the right in favor of racist causes. This is just more evidence that the party simply hasn t done the work to exclude open racists from their shrinking coalition.Featured image via Flickr | 0 |
8,468 | Hillary Clinton warns Britain on potential trade deal with Trump | LONDON (Reuters) - Former U.S. presidential candidate Hillary Clinton cautioned Britain on Sunday over its push to secure a trade deal with U.S. President Donald Trump after it leaves the European Union. Clinton, the Democratic Party candidate who lost out to Trump in last November s election, also said Britain would face serious disruption if it left the EU without a negotiated deal with Brussels. The British government has talked up the prospect of bilateral trade deals with the United States and others as one of the major benefits of leaving the EU following last year s surprise referendum vote to leave. Asked about the prospects of a British-U.S. deal, Clinton told the BBC: You re making a trade deal with somebody who says he doesn t believe in trade, so I m not quite sure how that s going to play out over the next few years. British Prime Minister Theresa May visited Trump in January to talk trade. The countries share $200 billion of trade each year. But May has since intervened in a dispute between U.S. aerospace firm Boeing and Canadian planemaker Bombardier, lobbying in the interests of Bombardier to try to protect jobs at its factory in Northern Ireland. Clinton also said Britain would be at a very big disadvantage if divorce negotiations with the EU failed, and went on to compare the factors behind the Brexit vote to her own election loss. Looking at the Brexit vote now it was a precursor to some extent to what happened to us in the United States... The amount of fabricated, false information that your voters were given by the Leave campaign, she said. She said her own presidential campaign was subject to similar treatment, citing the spread of false stories by online news outlets, and warned that Britain and other countries must be alert to the risks of such new media. The big lie is a very potent tool, she said. | 1 |
8,469 | Congressional watchdog expands probe of lax Wall Street oversight | NEW YORK (Reuters) - A U.S. congressional watchdog said on Tuesday it has formally added three agencies to its investigation into whether government regulators are too soft on the banks they are meant to police. In March, Reuters exclusively reported that the Government Accountability Office (GAO) was preparing a probe of the U.S. Federal Reserve and other to-be-determined regulators, in response to a request by Democratic U.S. Representatives Maxine Waters and Al Green for it to look into “regulatory capture.” The review, requested last October, is the first by an outside agency into the perception that financial regulators are “captured” by and too deferential toward the bankers they supervise, so that Wall Street benefits at the public’s expense. Lawrance Evans, director of the GAO’s financial markets and community investment division, said in an email on Tuesday that the probe would include the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) and the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA). The GAO will also look back at work by the Office of Thrift Supervision, which merged with the OCC in 2011, and regulates savings and loan institutions. Evans said the investigation is technically separate from the probe of the Fed, “but it is indeed part of the work we are doing in response to the Waters/Green request.” The FDIC declined to comment. Representatives from the OCC and NCUA were not immediately available to comment. Perceptions of regulatory capture have dogged the U.S. central bank and other regulators since they failed to head off the 2007-2009 financial crisis that sparked a global recession. | 1 |
8,470 | London will remain leading financial center: PM May's spokesman | LONDON (Reuters) - London will remain the world s leading financial center, a spokesman for British Prime Minister Theresa May said on Thursday when asked about comments by Goldman Sachs chief executive Lloyd Blankfein. We re not going to comment on each individual statement but lets be clear, London is and will remain the world s leading financial center, the spokesman said when asked about a tweet in which Blankfein said he was planning to spend more time in Frankfurt - a rival financial center. | 1 |
8,471 | One habit Trump says he will keep as president: tweeting | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President-elect Donald Trump plans to select the media representatives who are given access to the presidential press briefing room, but will not move the room out of the White House, he said in interview with Fox News broadcast on Wednesday. Trump, whose election campaign was punctuated by a stream of Twitter messages, also said he plans to keep tweeting when he takes office on Friday. “Look, I don’t like tweeting. I have other things I could be doing. But I get very dishonest media, very dishonest press. And it’s my only way that I can counteract,” said the Republican president-elect. MORE FROM REUTERS * As caliphate crumbles, Islamic State lashes out in Iraq * Potentially nasty fight looms over Supreme Court pick * Business euphoria over Trump gives way to caution, confusion A New York businessman and former reality TV star, Trump often used Twitter during the campaign to communicate his views, including his sometimes scathing opinions of rivals. Since winning the November election he has delivered a steady stream of tweets - often focused on countering critics. He has had a contentious relationship with some prominent U.S. news organization that he refers to derisively as the “mainstream media,” banning some news outlets during the presidential campaign and publicly criticizing individual reporters. Trump’s team had discussed moving news conferences out of the small West Wing briefing room to the Old Executive Office Building, which is part of the White House complex, incoming White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus said Sunday on ABC. “The press went crazy, so I said, ‘Let’s not move it.’ But some people in the press will not be able to get in,” Trump told Fox in the interview broadcast on Wednesday. “We have so many people that want to go in so we’ll have to just have to pick the people to go into the room - I’m sure other people will be thrilled about that,” he said. “But we offered a much larger room because we need a much larger room and we offered to do that, but they went crazy.” “And they’ll be begging for a much larger room very soon, you watch.” The current press room has about 49 seats, which are assigned by the White House Correspondents Association (WHCA). The current president of the WHCA is Jeff Mason, a Reuters correspondent. Moving the briefing room could reduce access to White House officials, as the room is only steps from the Oval Office. | 1 |
8,472 | Conservative White Grievance Queen Has Pathetic Twitter MELTDOWN Over Meryl Streep | Meryl Streep made a white grievance queen explode on Sunday night.Donald Trump waited until the next morning to lash out at the legendary actress, but Tomi Lahren went on an hour long Twitter rage just after Streep s speech.The white supremacist favorite repeatedly insulted and threatened Streep and Hollywood celebrities in a psychotic rant that should have mental health professionals concerned.Meryl bout to get some final thoughts tomorrow. These entitled Hollywood crybabies still don t understand how out of touch they are! Tomi Lahren (@TomiLahren) January 9, 2017Nearly 3 million more Americans voted for Hillary Clinton than Donald Trump, so Streep is definitely in touch with the majority.It might be warm in LA, but make no mistake it s raining snowflakes. Out of touch, whiny, overpaid SNOWFLAKES! #GoldenGlobes Tomi Lahren (@TomiLahren) January 9, 2017Ironic, considering Donald Trump makes billions of dollars but doesn t pay taxes and often doesn t pay people who do work for his company. Also, has Lahren not seen Trump s Twitter feed? It s FULL of real whining.These Hollywood elites wouldn t know average, every day hard-working Americans if we bit them in the ass. #GoldenGlobes Tomi Lahren (@TomiLahren) January 9, 2017Aw, Lahren thinks she s a hardworking person. That s so adorable. Must be SOOO hard to spew random bullshit on television in a studio. No need to learn lines. No need to work an 18 hour day. No need to work in some tough environments on location away from family. No need to learn new things to make a role convincing to the audience. Just show up and say whatever racist offensive thing on your narrow mind at the moment and get paid for it.Hey Meryl, your #liberalprivilege is showing. #GoldenGlobes Tomi Lahren (@TomiLahren) January 9, 2017Freedom of speech is a right, not a privilege.Oh no!! What will @realDonaldTrump do without the support of the liberal Hollywood elite?! Oh I know, he will Make America Great Again. Tomi Lahren (@TomiLahren) January 9, 2017He ll pout on Twitter about it.Oh and Meryl, we are just fine with watching football. Thanks. #GoldenGlobes Tomi Lahren (@TomiLahren) January 9, 2017The ratings are down this year so apparently not everyone is just fine with it.You re right about 1 thing Meryl, violence does incite violence kinda like the violence the DNC paid for at Trump rallies. Kinda like that.. Tomi Lahren (@TomiLahren) January 9, 2017That has been debunked for awhile now.Safeguard the truth Meryl? Like the truth in those 33k deleted emails? Or are we talking about Hillary s lies? Not sure, Meryl . Tomi Lahren (@TomiLahren) January 9, 2017Still obsessing over Hillary s emails? Seriously?It sounds like Lahren is in need of anger management classes. She can take Donald Trump with her.Featured image via screenshot | 0 |
8,473 | House Democratic leader Pelosi backs Clinton for president | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi endorsed Hillary Clinton for the presidency on Tuesday as voters in California, the nation’s most populous state, head to the polls. In a statement, the California Democrat praised the former U.S. secretary of state and called on supporters of rival Bernie Sanders “to advance our shared fight.” | 1 |
8,474 | Trump wants NATO to step up defense spending by year-end, says Pence | BRUSSELS (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump expects by the end of the year “real progress” among NATO allies to step up their defense spending toward the minimum criteria of two percent of their economic output, Vice President Mike Pence said on Monday. Speaking at NATO headquarters in Brussels, Pence said: “America will do our part but European defense requires European commitment as much as ours... The president expects real progress by the end of 2017.” | 1 |
8,475 | Trump discusses concern over Qatar dispute with Gulf, Arab states in calls | BRIDGEWATER, N.J. (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump spoke separately to the leaders of Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi and Qatar on Sunday to discuss his “concerns about the ongoing dispute” between Qatar and its Gulf and Arab neighbors, the White House said. Trump, who is spending a long weekend at his property in New Jersey, spoke to Saudi Arabia’s King Salman bin Abdulaziz, as well as Abu Dhabi’s crown prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan, and Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al-Thani. “He reiterated the importance of stopping terrorist financing and discrediting extremist ideology. The president also underscored that unity in the region is critical to accomplishing the Riyadh Summit’s goals of defeating terrorism and promoting regional stability,” the White House said. “President Trump, nevertheless, believes that the overriding objective of his initiative is the cessation of funding for terrorism,” it said. Qatar faces possible further sanctions by Arab states that have severed ties with Doha over allegations of links to terrorism. A deadline to accept their demands was originally expected to expire on Sunday night before Saudi Arabia and three allies agreed to a request from Kuwait to extend it by 48 hours. Qatari Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani said the demands were made to be rejected, adding that the Arab ultimatum was aimed not at tackling terrorism but at curtailing his country’s sovereignty. Gulf countries have insisted the demands were non- negotiable. The United Arab Emirates ambassador to Russia has said that Qatar could face fresh sanctions if it does not comply with the demands. The feud erupted last month when Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt severed diplomatic and travel ties with Qatar, accusing it of supporting terrorism and being an ally of regional foe Iran, charges that Doha denies. The rift opened days after Trump met Arab leaders in Riyadh and called for unity against regional threats such as Iran and hardline Islamist militant groups. A State Department official said on Sunday the United States encourages “all parties to exercise restraint to allow for productive diplomatic discussions. We are not going to get ahead of those discussions. We fully support Kuwaiti mediation.” | 1 |
8,476 | feds warn nyc officials about possible al qaeda attack | the man behind the trump rally disturbance in reno
usa today
the man who caused a commotion at a donald trump rally saturday said hes a registered republican who wanted only to show his displeasure with his partys nominee
members of the audience at the event for the gop presidential nominee tackled austyn crites of reno after someone yelled gun while others were trying to rip away his antitrump sign
i just went with sign that said republicans against trump crites said its a sign that you can find online i held up the sign and initially people around me were just booing me telling me to get out of there then a couple of these guys tried grabbing the sign out of my hands
crites had no weapon secret service agents later released a statement to that effect and let him go without charges
agents whisked trump offstage because crites was near the front of the auditorium at the renosparks convention center
crites said he holds no ill will toward the secret service or reno police who were just doing their job
i was trying to get the secret services attention for them to respond said michael newton of santa rosa calif who helped restrain crites they didnt respond i thought i had to do something i put my knee on what i think was his head so im not really sure there were five guys on him and he was moving i tried to help them immobilize him in final colorado push trump urges supporters to handdeliver ballots
newton said he felt as if crites were the aggressor
i saw his hand contact someones face he said maybe two people
crites said he didnt strike anyone but after he was taken to the ground he felt as if he were being mobbed
multiple people just tackled me down kicking me choking me and just beating me up he said thats when things even got crazier i was on the ground and people were holding my arms legs and i kept saying i can barely breathe i was turning my neck just to get a little bit of air to keep from passing out
thats when police intervened taking crites away in handcuffs
newtons partner donald newton of santa rosa took video of the immediate aftermath
the secret service said its investigation is ongoing the agency uses magnetometers at presidential campaign sites making it difficult for weapons to be smuggled into events
whats baffling to crites is how anyone could have thought he had a gun his sign was in the air for some time and he wasnt making any sudden movements he said
it wasnt like they noticed something suspicious and tackled me crites said thats not the case
he said he backs some gop candidates and just wanted to voice frustration with trump not cause panic
i love all the people in that rally he said were all fellow americans theyre doing their patriotic duty they support their candidate im just there showing that im a republican im all of your peoples brother i just have a slight difference of opinion
later on facebook crites wrote that he has no connection with the campaign of democratic presidential nominee hillary clinton but has canvassed for her for about three hours contributed to her campaign and voted for her
take what happened to me tonight as a classic example of dictator incitement of violence against your own republican brother with a stupid sign he wrote the post and his entire account were taken down soon afterward as some trump supporters on social media called him a clinton thughillary shill and trump assassin
shortly after the incident at the rally trump returned to the stage to raucous applause thanking the secret service and launching back into his prepared remarks his campaign later issued a statement also thanking the secret service and his supporters
follow seth a richardson on twitter setharichardson | 0 |
8,477 | Illinois governor vetoes $3.9 billion FY 2016 spending bill | CHICAGO (Reuters) - Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner on Friday vetoed a bill passed by the Democratic-controlled legislature in April to spend nearly $3.9 billion on state services that have not been funded due to an ongoing fiscal 2016 budget impasse. The Republican governor called the legislation “an empty promise.” “The bill purports to appropriate $3.89 billion, including more than $3 billion in general funds that the state does not have, for higher education and social service providers, but provides no source of funding,” Rauner said in his veto message. The political stalemate between Rauner and Democrats has left Illinois as the only U.S. state without a complete fiscal 2016 budget, operating instead on court-ordered spending and a muddled patchwork of ongoing and stopgap appropriations. Rauner called on lawmakers to pass complete balanced budgets for the current and next fiscal years, although the governor has proposed funding most fiscal 2017 services with a temporary spending plan and K-12 schools with a full-year budget. Illinois’ new fiscal year begins on July 1. The Democrats’ spending bill passed with enough votes in the Senate to override a veto, but fell short of that margin in the House. The measure would have sent money to cash-starved state universities and colleges, covered tuition grants for low-income college students, and funded health and human services that were not subject to court orders. The measure also appropriated about $63 million for unpaid wage increases owed to about 24,000 unionized state workers. | 1 |
8,478 | WHAT FBI’S COMEY JUST REVEALED Should Disqualify Hillary Clinton For Any Public Office! [Video] | FBI Director James Comey was literally destroyed today in his testimony on the Hill. What s even more damaging is the information about Hillary Clinton and her staff that Comey simply let go with no punishment at all. During the series of questions, Comey took heat from Gowdy, Jordan and other Republican Congressman. Out of all the testimony, the one comment that stuck out was the one regarding classified information. Comey commented that he felt like Clinton wasn t sophisticated with classified information. In other words, she had no idea what the letter C was on a classified document! Are these government employees not trained on how to handle sensitive information? PLEASE EXPLAIN HOW THIS WOMAN COULD ASK FOR YOUR VOTE YET ISN T SOPHISTICATED ENOUGH TO KNOW WHAT S CLASSIFIED? She wants the American people to TRUST her with our safety and security? No, Never! If this woman is unable to handle this then she s a danger to us! | 0 |
8,479 | Israel defence minister says hopes Palestinian protests waning | JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman said on Sunday he hoped the violence that erupted in Palestinian protests against President Donald Trump s decision to recognise Jerusalem as Israel s capital was abating. Our hope is that everything is calming down and that we are returning to a path of normal life without riots and without violence, Lieberman told Army Radio. Violence erupted for a third day on Saturday in Gaza and the occupied West Bank in response to Trump s announcement on Wednesday in which he overturned decades of U.S. policy towards the Middle East. Pre-dawn Israeli air strikes on Saturday killed two Palestinian gunmen after militants fired rockets from the enclave into Israel on Friday. However, street protests in Gaza and the West Bank were less intense on Saturday than on the previous two days and the military said there were no rocket launchings on Saturday night. Trump s recognition of Jerusalem has infuriated the Arab world and upset Western allies, who say it is a blow to peace efforts and risks causing further unrest in the Middle East. Late on Saturday, Arab foreign ministers urged the United States to abandon its decision and said the move would spur violence throughout the region. Israel says that all of Jerusalem is its capital. Palestinians want East Jerusalem as the capital of a future independent state. Most countries consider East Jerusalem, which Israel annexed after capturing it in a 1967 war, to be occupied territory, and say the status of the city should be left to be decided at future Israeli-Palestinian talks. The Trump administration says it is still committed to Palestinian-Israeli talks, that Israel s capital would be in Jerusalem under any serious peace plan, and that it has not taken a position on the city s borders. It says the moribund negotiations can be revived only by ditching outdated policies. | 1 |
8,480 | Watch As MSNBC Reporter Completely Humiliates Sean Spicer Over Trump’s Wiretapping B.S. | White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer was completely humiliated by MSNBC s Hallie Jackson during Tuesday s White House briefing. Jackson wanted to know why Donald Trump would call on Congress to investigate the supposed wiretapping at Trump Tower when he claims to already have this very information. This was a question Spicer couldn t answer. All he could do was squirm. You said the president stands by his tweets Saturday morning that President Obama ordered this wiretap, Jackson stated. You ve also said that the president wants Congress to investigate. Some members of Congress, by the way, have asked the White House and asked the president to come forward with the information. So bottom line, why would the president want Congress to investigate for information he already has? she asked.Spicer started blubbering about the importance of separation of powers but came nowhere near actually addressing the issue at hand.Jackson wasn t about to let him off the hook that easy, though. She continued to press Spicer, wondering if the president has the info, Sean and I guess that s what I m trying to get to if he s sitting on this information that he found out, he s now directing or asking or recommending that the intelligence committees look into this. And you talked about they have resources and staff, which they do, but why expend those resources and staff if the President found out this information and has it? Spicer then explained that Trump thinks Congress asking the Justice Department to conduct an investigation might add credibility to the look of Trump s bogus accusation that former President Obama tapped his phones during the election. I think we ve made it very clear how he wants this done, Spicer finally concluded when he could think of nothing better to say.Watch Sean Spicer be completely humiliated by MSNBC s Hallie Jackson:Featured image via Mark Wilson/Getty Images | 0 |
8,481 | Donald Trump Whines, Swears And Talks Cocktail Parties — In A Speech To Children | It s tough sometimes to imagine that Donald Trump has five children since it s clear from Monday s speech in front of 40,000 Boy Scouts and other attendees at the Boy Scouts Jamboree in West Virginia that he has absolutely no idea what kind of talk is appropriate for children.While most adults would take this opportunity to offer some pearls of adult wisdom or cheerlead the Boy Scouts toward their futures, Trump chose to deliver a tirade of Trumpisms.Like almost any time Trump has tried to string together more than a couple of words at a time, most of his speech was an inarticulate mess which consisted of his trademark whining, a wee bit of swearing and a pointless anecdote about a burned out rich guy at a cocktail party.In a string of what we might want to call Trump s greatest hits, toward the very beginning of his speech, he insulted President Obama and said he didn t want to talk about politics. Who the hell wants to talk about politics when I m in front of the Boy Scouts? Trump asked, but the answer, apparently, was Donald Trump. He talked about a lot of politics.Trump, to kids at Scout jamboree: Who the hell wants to speak about politics when I m in front of the Boy Scouts? https://t.co/Rz5Tko7WW8 Bradd Jaffy (@BraddJaffy) July 24, 2017 By the way, just a question: Did President Obama ever come to a jamboree? he asked as the crowd of scouts, scoutmasters, and various other adults gathered in West Virginia yelled the word no. The answer is no, Trump continued. But we ll be back. (Obama did address a 100th anniversary scouting event in 2010 by video.)Source: USA TodayPresident Obama did not attend in person out of protest for the Boy Scouts policy of not admitting gay scouts. That policy has since changed.Trump talked about killing Obamacare and said he was going to fire Secretary of Health and Human Services Tom Price if that didn t happen:At Boy Scouts Jamboree, Trump jokes about firing his HHS secretary if he doesn t get the votes for health care bill https://t.co/QUhf3TAZji Bradd Jaffy (@BraddJaffy) July 24, 2017He also regaled the audience of people who are mostly too young to drink with a story of a friend of his at a cocktail party.Trump tells kids at Boy Scout Jamboree about his friend who got tired of yachting, lost his $$ & a NY cocktail party https://t.co/VbNRcRVpgB Bradd Jaffy (@BraddJaffy) July 24, 2017He also whined about loyalty, or his perceived lack of it:Naturally, Trump complained about the fake media. He said me might re-name Washington, D.C. a cesspool, instead of a swamp. After hearing that speech, or the snippets, it was obvious that Trump had no idea he wasn t at one of his campaign rallies. If this is an example of how he speaks to children, it explains a lot about his children.Featured image via Drew Angerer/Getty Images | 0 |
8,482 | Rachel Maddow CRUSHES The GOP Fantasy That Reagan Was Stronger On Iran Than Obama (VIDEO) | Republicans have revived an old and overused piece of right-wing trash in an effort to try to invalidate the unmitigated success of President Obama s recent diplomatic victories with Iran.The myth that they have dug back out of their closet is that Ronald Reagan freed American diplomats and citizens held hostage in Iran, simply by becoming president. Republicans like to infer that Reagan was some kind of ultra-tough Republican cowboy, and this caused Iran to be petrified with fear causing them to surrender the hostages the moment Reagan was sworn into office. As Rachel so eloquently explains, nothing could be further from the truth.Watch Rachel completely destroy the Republican effort to try to deny Obama the legacy he earned below:If you want to look at who operated from a position of power in the negotiations, you need to look no further than the soft-spoken Jimmy Carter. He froze $11 billion in Iranian assets after they seized the hostages. Iran was engaged in a war with Iraq at the time. Suddenly the Iranian s had second thoughts. $11 billion in 1980 dollars was huge and they needed this for the war effort. The unfreezing of assets, plus an American pledge to not meddle in internal Iranian affairs and an agreement to work together to resolve post-revolution financial claims, were the only things we had to give them. To sum it up, Jimmy got virtually everything and Iran got nothing except being left alone.The ONLY aspect that Ronald Reagan played in the freedom of the Iranian hostages was coincidental at best. If Iran had not released them when they did, they risked Reagan nullifying the agreement, and in turn, they would lose everything that was already on the bargaining table. You could replace Reagan with literally any other person that existed on Earth at the time, and you would have gotten the same result. He did NOTHING except occupy space. It stands in a stark contrast to Reagan s true legacy on Iran. Remember the one where he illegally sold weapons to Iran in order to try to get them to facilitate the freeing of American hostages from Lebanon and using the proceeds of the sale to fund an illegal war in Central America? But, that s none of our business according to Republicans.featured image via MSNBC screen capture | 0 |
8,483 | WATCH: JOEL OSTEEN FACES WRATH OF ANGRY CHRISTIANS After He Gives Reason For Locking Church Doors To Devastated Houston Flood Victims | The popular evangelical preacher and inspirational speaker may have permanently damaged his brand with what many consider a very lame answer to the question about why his church locked out the neediest people in his community, who were devastated by the floods in Houston and surrounding areas, while he remained high and dry in his $10 million mansion Showing off a toothy grin and posing in front of stacks of donated food and diapers, televangelist Joel Osteen showed not a shred of remorse as he appeared on the Today show on Wednesday.Proudly, he declared that the doors of his 17,000 seat Texas megachurch had always been open to the people of Houston who have been rendered homeless by Hurricane Harvey and its devastating floods.It came after shocked Texans arrived at his Lakewood church on Sunday to find it free of flood water on the ground level despite a Facebook post issued at the height of the city s panic which claimed it was inaccessible due to flooding .Osteen, still shirking responsibility for the decision, then said that the church chose not to open up to the needy because the city had not officially asked him to. This despite other locations in Houston inviting in refugees out of charity and not an official request.Did Osteen really say he didn t open the church to flood victims because the city didn t ask him to? Does a church need to be asked by the government to help people affected by a natural disaster in their community?Eventually, it opened up and it is now acting as a distribution center , finally carrying out good and much needed work as the city reels in crisis.But Osteen now faces the wrath of an angry Christian community and the disgust of those beyond it for his treatment of the disaster. Daily MailApparently, many folks on social media didn t feel as though the pastor, who also happens to be mega-rich, is doing enough to help the people who have supported his luxury lifestyle for years.Twitter user @CollinRugg reminded Olsteen that the church belongs to God and not to him. Collin Rugg tells Osteen to Open up His doors & let the people of Houston in! Joel Osteen,"Your" mega church doesn't belong to you, it belongs to GodOpen up His doors & let the people of Houston in!#HoustonStrong Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) August 29, 2017This Twitter user offered a similar sentiment:Joel Osteen has made millions in Jesus' name, but when it comes time to actually act like a Christian he fails spectacularly. #Houston Lori O. (@lori_oh) August 28, 2017This Twiter user posted a picture of his Catholic priest actually working in the Houston floods to help victims.This is Father David Bergeron, the Father at my Catholic Church. He was out in a kayak yesterday blessing+helping ppl, Joel Osteen who???? pic.twitter.com/oVsNWniUsx Triiodide Ion (@alfredomorenx) August 28, 2017Outspoken conservative Pastor Greg Locke reminded Osteen of his obligation to show the love of Christ at this very moment , telling him to OPEN THE DOORS. Joel Osteen, as a Pastor you have a huge obligation to show the love of Christ at this very moment. OPEN THE DOORS. #HoustonStrong Pastor Greg Locke (@pastorlocke) August 28, 2017If the New Orleans Saints could open their stadium to the public during Katrina, Joel Osteen can open up his church for the Houston flooding Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) August 28, 2017Please understand that Joel Osteen does NOT represent Christianity. Never has, never will. @JoelOsteen #HoustonStrong #MAGA pic.twitter.com/5sSaUrzFvY M A N them (@mikandynothem) August 28, 2017Joel Osteen's megachurch is designed for the rising tithe, not tide. Eugene Gu, MD (@eugenegu) August 28, 2017They shamed Osteen on social media, sharing photographs of the very dry land outside and questioned the Christianity of a man who had seemingly turned his back on the very congregation which built his $40million empire with their donations and undying faith.The church then released questionable photographs which it said demonstrated how it had flooded over the weekend but said the waters had since receded.PHOTO OF FLOODING IN LAKEWOOD CHURCH:Lakewood Church also sent photos it says show flooding in and around the building:PHOTO OF THE OUTSIDE OF THE FLOODED CHURCH: Two Houston men shared this video of the Lakewood Church following the flood as evidence that the church was unaffected by the flooding: | 0 |
8,484 | Trump to meet with long list of leaders in New York next week -White House | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump will hold a series of meetings with world leaders on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly meeting next week in New York, the White House said on Friday. Trump will meet with the leaders of France and Israel on Monday before holding a dinner with Latin American leaders that evening, Trump’s national security adviser H.R. McMaster told reporters. On Tuesday, he will meet Qatar’s emir, and on Wednesday, he will meet with leaders from Jordan, the Palestinian Authority, the United Kingdom and Egypt, McMaster said. Trump will meet on Thursday with leaders from Turkey, Afghanistan and Ukraine before holding a lunch with the leaders of South Korea and Japan, he said. | 1 |
8,485 | Trump, Sanders explore staging unusual presidential debate | BISMARCK, N.D. (Reuters) - Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Bernie Sanders on Thursday explored staging an unconventional U.S. presidential debate that would sideline Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton and create a television spectacle that could attract huge ratings. The two men - a billionaire and a democratic socialist - expressed interest in a one-on-one encounter in California even though Republican and Democratic presidential candidates traditionally do not debate each other until the parties have selected their nominees. “I’d love to debate Bernie,” Trump told reporters in North Dakota, after he secured enough delegates to clinch the Republican presidential nomination. “I think it would get very high ratings. It would be in a big arena.” Basking in his newly sealed nomination at a later campaign rally in Billings, Montana, Trump said he expected to put 15 states in play in the general election, compared with three or four for a traditional Republican. He named California, Washington and Michigan among others. Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks said in an email there were no formal plans yet for a debate. But Sanders campaign manager Jeff Weaver told CNN there had been “a few discussions” between the campaigns about the details. “We hope that he will not chicken out,” Weaver said. “We hope Donald Trump has the courage to get on stage now that he said he would.” Sanders, a U.S. senator from Vermont, is running far behind Clinton in the race for the Democratic nomination for the Nov. 8 presidential election. But a nationally televised debate with the presumptive Republican nominee would be a big boost to his chances in the California primary on June 7, when Clinton is likely to clinch the nomination. Trump said a debate with Sanders could raise up to $15 million for charity. “I’d love to debate Bernie, but they’ll have to pay a lot of money for it,” he said. The idea was hatched during an appearance by Trump on ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live” late on Wednesday. Kimmel said he asked Trump about the debate at the suggestion of Sanders. “Game on,” Sanders tweeted. “I look forward to debating Donald Trump in California before the June 7 primary.” Sanders himself appeared on Thursday night on the talk show, where he said Kimmel made it possible for a “very interesting debate” between “two guys who look at the world very, very differently.” Sanders added that the goal would be to have the debate in a stadium in California. He then had a warning for Trump. If I become the Democratic presidential nomination, he said, “we’re going to beat him and beat him bad.” Clinton, who backed out of an agreement to debate Sanders before the California vote, said she did not think a Trump-Sanders showdown would happen. “This doesn’t sound like a serious discussion. I’m looking forward to debating Donald Trump in the general election. I really can’t wait to get on the stage with him,” she told CNN in a phone interview. A Fox News spokeswoman confirmed the network was trying to host a forum with Trump and Sanders. Representatives from other networks did not immediately respond to requests for comment. “If it does come to pass, it would generate enormous ratings,” said Alan Schroeder, a Northeastern University professor who has written extensively about presidential debates. “They are from two different planets. You have a real personality contrast. It would dominate media coverage.” Sanders, who has promised to continue his campaign through the Democratic nominating convention in July, has said he will do everything he can to ensure that Trump does not win the White House. “Smart and bold move by Sanders,” Democratic strategist Brad Bannon said. “The Clinton people are furious but Bernie wins points for being so aggressive.” Clinton has tried to woo Sanders supporters as she turns her attention to the general election. But some Democrats worry his supporters - who are largely young, working-class and disillusioned with the Democratic Party establishment - will turn instead to political neophyte Trump, who has championed a populist agenda. The debate would give Trump a national forum to criticize Clinton and try to win over Sanders supporters ahead of an expected Trump-Clinton general election contest, Democratic strategist Chris Kofinis said. “I think Sanders should think long and hard about giving Trump a forum,” Kofinis said. “It crosses a line, but apparently in this election there is no line.” Dale Ranney, 62, a Trump volunteer who has been to 21 of his rallies, said she would be delighted to see Trump and Sanders debate. “I think it’s a great idea, any time you can get more information to the people, absolutely,” Ranney said. “Having Trump debate a socialist? Absolutely. Go for it.” | 1 |
8,486 | Spain's Abertis board to discuss moving head office from Catalonia on Monday: source | MADRID (Reuters) - The board of Spanish infrastructure firm Abertis will meet on Monday to discuss moving its head office out of Catalonia as the region s parliament considers unilaterally declaring independence from Spain, a source familiar with the matter said. Several big Catalan companies have announced plans to move their registered office to other cities in Spain after Catalonia went ahead with an independence referendum last week which was banned by a Spanish court. There was no immediate comment from Abertis, which builds, maintains and operates highways in Spain, France and the Americas. Italy s Atlantia bid 16.3 billion euros ($19 billion) for Abertis in May to create the world s biggest toll road operator. ($1 = 0.8523 euros) | 1 |
8,487 | Aziz Ansari Just Told Trump To ‘Go F*ck Himself’ As Only He Can (TWEET) | In the aftermath of the Orlando shooting, there has been yet another unfounded uprising of hate and fear against the Muslim community. Donald Trump is even calling, once more, for a ban on all Muslim immigrants.With a lot to say on this matter is none other than comedian Aziz Ansari, whose parents just so happen to be Muslim immigrants. He wrote a piece for the New York Times, and called out Trump s hatred where it stands.In the intro to his article on Twitter, Ansari just flat-out told Trump to go f*ck himself. Trump wants to ban Muslim immigrants like my parents. I wrote a piece for New York Times telling him to go fuck himself. Trump wants to ban Muslim immigrants like my parents. I wrote a piece for @NYTimes telling him to go fuck himself: https://t.co/MCDsQyz2jy Aziz Ansari (@azizansari) June 24, 2016Within the article, which you can find in full here, Ansari wrote: Today, with the presidential candidate Donald J. Trump and others like him spewing hate speech, prejudice is reaching new levels. It s visceral, and scary, and it affects how people live, work and pray. It makes me afraid for my family. It also makes no sense. He explains that he s the son of Muslim immigrants, and how his family is now told to be careful in how they worship. Also explaining, that as American citizens, that is absolutely awful. We have the freedom of religion in this nation, and everyone has a right to worship how they so choose on their own time.Ansari wrote that despite not being religious himself, even looking like you might be Muslim can make you a target of discrimination: There is a strange feeling that you must almost prove yourself worthy of feeling sad and scared like everyone else. He added: The vitriolic and hate-filled rhetoric coming from Mr. Trump isn t so far off from cursing at strangers from a car window. He has said that people in the American Muslim community know who the bad ones are, implying that millions of innocent people are somehow complicit in awful attacks. Not only is this wrongheaded; but it also does nothing to address the real problems posed by terrorist attacks. By Mr. Trump s logic, after the huge financial crisis of 2007-08, the best way to protect the American economy would have been to man white males. Is Ansari right in telling Trump to go f*ck himself ?? Absolutely. Trump is personally attacking Ansari and his family and is just so absolutely wrong about the Muslim faith and community.Trump s tactic of divide and conquer, putting himself and his white pride fanatics against anyone who doesn t fit the mold of what he sees fit to live in the United States, isn t only bigoted, but just outright dangerous.Good on Ansari for speaking out and calling Trump out on his bigotry.Featured Photos by John Moore/Getty Images and Gary Gershoff/Getty Images for Peabody | 0 |
8,488 | Zimbabwe ex-leader Mugabe visits Singapore hospital: sources | SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Former Zimbabwe president Robert Mugabe visited a hospital in Singapore this week apparently for medical checks, his first trip outside his country since he was ousted from office last month, sources in Singapore said on Thursday. The 93-year-old former leader who ruled the southern African nation for 37 years, resigned after the army and his ruling ZANU-PF party turned against him when it became clear that his 52-year-old wife, Grace, was being groomed as his successor. Mugabe left Harare with his wife and aides on Monday evening, a Zimbabwe state security official said this week. He was expected to also visit Malaysia where his daughter is expecting a child. An Air Zimbabwe flight arrived in Singapore on Tuesday. Mugabe visited a private hospital in central Singapore on Wednesday with an entourage that included his security guards, the sources who were familiar with the visit told Reuters. They spoke on the condition they were not identified as they are not authorized to speak to the media. A spokesman at the hospital said he would not be able to confirm whether Mugabe had visited its clinics. Mugabe has a reputation for extensive international travel, including regular medical trips to Singapore - a source of public anger among his impoverished citizens. | 1 |
8,489 | Trump Releases His Health Care Plan – Here’s The One Thing You’ll Hate The Most (VIDEO) | For the longest time, Donald Trump has been advocating for the complete and utter repeal of Obamacare yet through all his talking he hasn t released a plan of his own that is until now. On Wednesday, The Donald laid out a seven-point plan, which is so lacking in detail and void of specifics that a high school student could fit the entire thing on one page, double spaced even.So what s the first thing he wants to do? By getting rid of Obamacare altogether, as he says, Trump will allow insurers to discriminate once again against people with pre-existing conditions, giving insurers the option not to provide coverage as they see fit, along with all the other protections Obamacare provides. For a full list of those shelters, visit HERE. Trump has said in the past that he would replace the pre-existing condition rule with something else, something much greater but he must have forgotten about that promise because he didn t offer any alternatives, not in this one-page plan.While Obamacare may seem complicated to some, getting rid of common sense provisions like this should alarm every American. And, Trump isn t alone on this. Paul Ryan, the new Speaker of The House, was forced to admit that popular rules like this (even among Republican voters) would end up going away along with Obamacare.So that s number one gut anything and everything, even if it makes sense just because it s something Obama came up with. Got it.What else is in there?Trump wants to allow insurers to compete across state lines. You might remember this if you watched the debate last week, where Rubio got the applause of the night for making fun of Trump about it. This was before Trump made his entire plan available, and the only thing he could think of was this aspect of it. Get rid of the state lines, you could hear him say, over and over.It s possible this is the only real part of Donald Trump s plan that he cares about. After all, this was the only part he could remember when called out on the debate stage in front of everyone.The other remaining 5 points of Trump s plan, are as follows:Healthcare reform is much more complicated than this, however. This seven-point plan doesn t tell us much. All it really says is what Republican voters want to hear.And here s another doozy. He made a statement trying to link his strict immigration policies as being one factor in limiting the cost of health insurance for illegal immigrants, but what he really did was admit that illegal immigrants only cause a tiny fraction of the total cost of healthcare. Donald Trump says illegal immigrants cost the U.S. $11 billion annually, but total health care spending in the U.S is around $2.9 trillion. That s not even a drop in the bucket. This is just further proof, straight from the source, that illegals aren t driving up the cost of healthcare like Republicans claim.It s possible that the real reason Trump s plan is so short is because he s perfectly happy with insurance companies filling in the small details instead of the government. We ve already been there and done that. It didn t work for the majority of Americans before, and it won t now, either.Featured image via Facebook. | 0 |
8,490 | Fearing Trump torpedo, Europe scrambles to save Iran deal | BERLIN/PARIS (Reuters) - European countries are scrambling to cobble together a package of measures they hope will keep the Iran nuclear deal on track if U.S. President Donald Trump ignores their pleas and decertifies the landmark 2015 agreement this week. The package would include a strong statement backing the deal by European powers, together with efforts to lobby the U.S. Congress and put wider pressure on Iran, officials said. But without strong U.S. support for the deal, senior officials in Berlin, Paris and London say it may be only a matter of time before the pact between Tehran and six world powers unravels, with grave consequences for Middle East security, nonproliferation efforts and transatlantic ties. The two-year-old agreement, under which Iran agreed to freeze its nuclear program for 15 years in exchange for sanctions relief, is viewed in Europe as a rare triumph of international diplomacy in the Middle East. As tensions over North Korea s nuclear activities risk boiling over into all-out war, any move by the United States to undermine the Iran deal is seen in Europe as utter folly. European capitals have been delivering this message to the White House and Congress in one of the most intense lobbying campaigns in recent memory. In the past weeks, European ambassadors have met dozens of U.S. lawmakers. And on Tuesday, British Prime Minister Theresa May lobbied Trump by phone. Despite this, Trump is expected declare this week that Iran is not complying with the pact. He is also due to unveil a tough new strategy toward Iran - including designating its Revolutionary Guards Corps as a terrorist organization - that could sink the deal. If the feeling is the United States no longer supports the agreement then the political reality is that the deal will be in serious jeopardy and its implementation will be very difficult, a senior French diplomat told Reuters. A decision by Trump to decertify would not automatically kill the agreement, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). The expectation is that Trump would kick the ball to Congress, which would then have 60 days to decide whether to reimpose sanctions lifted as part of the JCPOA. THREE-PRONGED RESPONSE European officials said they were preparing a three-pronged strategy if this does occur. First, Berlin, London and Paris would issue statements reaffirming their commitment to the deal. Second, they would redouble efforts to lobby Congress, which appears keen to keep the deal, against any rash moves. And third, they would present measures to pressure Iran over its ballistic missile program and destabilizing policies in the Middle East areas that fall outside the narrowly-focused nuclear deal. French President Emmanuel Macron alluded to this at the United Nations last month. Diplomats said the package was still in the works and they had not yet briefed Brussels on it. With the third step, the Europeans hope to build a bridge to Washington while keeping the JCPOA intact. But a German diplomat said ratcheting up pressure on Tehran was like walking a tightrope: push too hard and the whole deal could fall apart. We all knew the JCPOA wasn t perfect, but by calling its benefits into question I see us only losing, said a senior European diplomat who has been involved in negotiations with Iran since 2003, well before Washington joined the talks under President Barack Obama. If Trump follows through on his threats it will be the second time in four months that he has distanced the United States from a major multilateral agreement despite intense lobbying by partners and members of his own cabinet. But in Europe, the Iran move would be seen as far more damaging than Trump s decision in June to pull out of the Paris climate accord. The threat from Iran in terms of nuclear proliferation is more immediate. This is far more dangerous, said Elmar Brok, a veteran foreign policy expert in the European Parliament and party ally of German Chancellor Angela Merkel. European officials and analysts fear a breakdown of the JCPOA could lead to an arms race in the Middle East, a military conflict between Iran and Israel and an escalation of regional proxy wars between Iran and Saudi Arabia. They fear it would also doom any chances, no matter how slim, for a negotiated deal with North Korea. At the end of the day it s all about the risk of war, said Francois Heisbourg, chairman of the International Institute for Strategic Studies. There is also the danger of a further deterioration in transatlantic ties, especially if Washington targets European firms that do business in Iran. Were that to happen, the EU ambassador to Washington, David O Sullivan, has said Brussels would revert to a 1990s-era law that shields European companies from extraterritorial sanctions. Even if the EU were to take such a step, the senior French diplomat said European companies could think twice about their Iran commitments. Among firms that have announced big deals in Iran since the JCPOA went into force are planemaker Airbus, French energy group Total and Germany s Siemens. One of the big difficulties of the agreement is ensuring the economic operators have confidence in the system and key to that is confidence in the United States, the diplomat said. Any signs that European companies are pulling back could prompt the Iranians to reassess the merits of the nuclear deal. The agreement with Iran is like a delicate plant, said Omid Nouripour, an Iranian-born lawmaker with the German Greens party, which is expected to be part of Merkel s next coalition government. It is a sign of what diplomacy can achieve but it is fragile. The American president doesn t appear to believe in diplomacy. He seems intent on crushing this plant. | 1 |
8,491 | Australian PM says business as usual despite citizenship crisis | SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said on Friday the business of government goes on despite a citizenship crisis that ousted his deputy and cost the government its parliamentary majority. Australia s High Court ruled earlier on Friday that Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce and four other lawmakers are ineligible to remain in parliament because they held dual citizenship at the time of the last election. [S9N1LR006] The decision of the court today is clearly not the outcome we were hoping for but the business of government goes on, Turnbull told reporters in Canberra. Turnbull confirmed that a by-election would be held in Joyce s seat on Dec. 2. | 1 |
8,492 | “GYNECOLOGY WITHOUT BORDERS” Group Releases GUT-WRENCHING Study: 70% Of Female Refugees Raped, Beaten Or Victims Of Sexual Abuse | AROUND 70 per cent of female refugees in northern France have been the victims of rape, domestic violence or sexual abuse, the French charity Gynecology Without Borders (GSF) reports.The horror statistics were revealed yesterday by the group which used to operate at the now-demolished Jungle camp in Calais.It said many women suffered daily attacks.Richard Matis, the charity s vice president, said: Refugee camps worldwide are plagued by violence, that is a fact. But women are usually found to be more at risk of rape and other forms of sexual assault. The charity, which now treats female migrants stuck in the sprawling Grande-Synthe tent camp in neighbouring Dunkirk, added the women were raped and beaten on a daily basis, and had become immune to sexual violence and abuse.Mr Matis added: Some women were repeatedly raped during the perilous journey to Europe. Others are trapped in abusive marriages. And some women are pimped out by their husbands and forced into so-called survival sex with people smugglers so that their families can continue traveling across Europe. For entire story: Express UK | 0 |
8,493 | CHECKMATE! PUTIN Offers Up Proof Of Trump’s Innocence [Video] | Putin just trolled the Democrats Haha!Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday that U.S. President Donald Trump had not divulged any secrets during a meeting in Washington with Russian officials and offered to prove it by supplying Congress with a transcript.But a leading U.S. Republican politician said he would have little faith in any notes Putin might supply.Two U.S. officials said on Monday Trump had disclosed classified information about a planned Islamic State operation to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov when they met last week, plunging the White House into a fresh controversy just four months into Trump s tenure.Trump, whose administration has been dogged by allegations that Russia helped him win the White House and that he and his allies are too cozy with Moscow, has defended his decision to discuss intelligence with the Russians after media reports of the meeting alarmed some U.S. and foreign politicians.President Putin deployed his trademark sarcasm on Wednesday to make clear he thought the accusation that Trump had divulged secrets absurd. I spoke to him (Lavrov) today, a smiling Putin told a news conference with Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni in the Russian Black Sea resort of Sochi. I ll be forced to issue him (Lavrov) with a reprimand because he did not share these secrets with us. Not with me, nor with representatives of Russia s intelligence services. It was very bad of him. This was obvious sarcasm by Putin who is probably looking at the Democrats with disgust. Via: Reuters | 0 |
8,494 | At least six killed in Yemen suicide bombing claimed by Islamic State | ADEN (Reuters) - At least six people were killed on Tuesday when a suicide car bomb ripped through a base used by a local security force in Yemen s southern port city of Aden, residents said, in an attack claimed by Islamic State. Dozens of other people, including civilians, were wounded in the attack, which occurred outside a camp used by a local security force organized by the Saudi-led coalition fighting Yemen s Houthi rebels. Islamist militants have exploited a civil war that began in 92015 to try to expand their influence and gain a foothold in the impoverished country located in the southern Arabian Peninsula, near the world s top oil exporter, Saudi Arabia. Witnesses described a huge explosion that shook the al-Mansoura district in northern Aden, destroying at least one building and shattering windows in others. A plume of smoke rose over the area. Ambulances raced to the scene to evacuate the wounded. Pictures circulating on social media showed several young men in military uniform being carried away. Residents said two suicide bombers carried out the attack. But Islamic state, which claimed responsibility for the attack, said only one bomber was involved and identified him as Abu Hajar al-Adani. The group said Adani targeted the operations room of the apostate Security Belt , destroying it and killing and wounding all those inside it. Pictures posted on social media showed young men in military uniforms being carried away in bandages. The Security Belt was set up by the United Arab Emirates, a key member of the Saudi-led coalition that has been fighting the Iran-aligned Houthis since they advanced on Aden in 2015, forcing President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi to flee to Saudi Arabia. The civil war between the Iran-aligned Houthis and the internationally recognized Hadi government has killed more than 10,000 people and displaced more than two million. The war drags on with no sign that it will end soon. Tuesday s attack was the second of its kind in Aden this month. On Nov. 5, a car bomber blew himself up at a security checkpoint, killing 15 people and wounding at least 20. Islamic State also claimed responsibility for that assault but provided no evidence it was involved [nL5N1NB0EF]. | 1 |
8,495 | trump throws a fit when asked why he is promoting his hotel instead of campaigning | by sarah jones on sat oct th at pm donald trump uses sexual shaming and humiliation of women as simplistic revenge for the slightest felt spurn a newly surfaced video via ryan grim shows the trump humiliation game in action which i walk everyone through from the pov of the woman share on twitter print this post
if youre a woman whos worked in any business where youre forced to try to appease the massively sensitive ego of a sexually aggressive vulgar man in power you will know exactly whats about to happen in this video
donald trump uses sexual shaming and humiliation of women as simplistic revenge for the slightest felt spurn and theres a newly surfaced video via ryan grim at huffington post that shows the trump humiliation game in action
in the video trump publicly sexualizes and shames the miss universe winner from australia jennifer hawkins as revenge before he does it trump tells the audience get even with people if they screw you screw them back times as hard i really believe that
watch this newly surfaced corporate speech here via huffington post major trigger warning if youve been there
watching this you see the trump modus operandi in action this is the sting felt by numerous women who report spurning trumps advances the harassment as revenge the sexual shaming
trump sets the audience up for the roman gladiator moment of public sexual offering by priming them with his belief that you should screw people back if they screw you the sexually angry verb foreshadows whats to come because he is going to screw jennifer hawkins in public when she realizes that because its public she cant further humiliate him by saying no or objecting without facing huge repercussions
trump says hes going to give them an example of his revenge theory jennifer hawkins
trump orders hawkins to the stage the audience cheers and jeers delighting in the upcoming shaming of the beautiful girl its to be a public spanking so much fun
first of all how beautiful is jennifer trump asks claiming ownership of jennifer as an object while playing magnanimous daddy who dishes out praise and approval before the spanking the message he can make or break her she better play nice
warning shot this is about getting even
trump tells the audience that he was mad at hawkins because she allegedly dissed him by declining to introduce him at the event in sydney he tells the audience how mad he was and then says as shes crossing the stage shes my favorite miss universe so she thinks maybe this isnt going to be as bad as she fears
but then he stabs her publicly for the first time but i think i like the new one better
the audience loves it he is going to feed them the sexual humiliation of a beautiful woman because she wasnt a good girl she reaches him and they clasp hands while she smiles through the shame knowing she has no choice and wanting to be a good sport
hawkins tries to make light of the situation while appeasing trump playing along with his game because she has to but there will be no easy way out of this one it wont be enough to fawn over him in front of the audience she will have to pay
i was actually going to get up and tell you that jennifer is a beautiful girl on the outside but shes not very bright trump tells the audience signaling that hawkins is a piece of meat to be dissected by him publicly for her refusal to give him anything he asks for
that wouldnt have been true but i would have said it anyway trump proudly tells the audience this is his alpha male routine except in real life the alpha male doesnt have to abuse money and power he inherited in order to win the girl but in the mind of little men like trump this makes him a winner
trump points out that hawkins is a big star now but he helped her make it and then dissed him he owns her she must comply or face his wrath hawkins tries to say that she did introduce him but trump pushes her away from the microphone this public shaming will be done from trumps pov only no need for hawkins to assert her personhoodthere will be no defense allowed because shes already guilty
and you know what she came tonight she came came she came she came trump says gleefully like the drunk pervy uncle everyone tries to avoid at christmas he waits for the audience to join him in his sexual shaming and they do they get it hee heee so clever came knuckles dragging on the floor clever
see so they have the same filthy minds in australia trump says
trump grabs hawkins around the waist and forces a kiss on her just like he bragged about doing on the bush tape
hawkins reflexively turns away and puts her arm between them the kiss misses its mark and lands on her cheek she is hoping this is good enough humiliation for him but putting her foot down on actual mouth contact shes allowed herself to be publicly humiliated to appease him and pretended to fawn over him as required but she will not cannot allow the kiss the repulsive kiss
im telling this story as i imagine it to be from her point of view although she has refused to comment of course she refused to comment women are told they will be blackballed if they comment the world is full of men like trump and they stick together see roger ailes women have to play along and appease and if that doesnt work they have to allow themselves to be sexually assaulted and humiliated just a little bit in public especially if they said no in private
i can only do this because i have lived it somewhat like this in public and i have tried to appease the ego of the assaulter in order to keep my job while denying him his assumed entitlement to my body
from talking to so many women during this election i know that im not alone i know that many other women will watch this and know they will feel the creep of fear and revulsion the deer in the headlights cringe that takes over when you know that you are about to be humiliated as a sexual object because you refused him or refused to appease the ego of the powerful man in charge by behaving like a sexual conquest how dare hawkins have her own life and be unwilling to change all of her plans in order to introduce trump
and other people will watch this humiliation and enjoy it setting you up to be humiliated even more they will laugh about it and gossip about it which is the social punishment women face when they reject a man like trump ironically if you give in youre not humiliated its only if you say no that you are set up to be publicly flogged as a sex object
its not just the unwanted kiss although that is disgusting and assault much like donald trump bragged about doing on the billy bush bus tape its the public humiliation and denigration
its the way the woman is forced in front of thousands of people to try to smile her way through his ambush of verbal and physical assaults as he takes revenge
its the way she tries to make it okay to sweetsmooth his ego in order to get out of the line of fire and in return he shames her by suggesting he made her come and then grabs her for an unwanted kiss
if there is any good to come out of the total crapfest of the trump candidacy perhaps it is a raised awareness that women are people and that this kind of thing is horrific but its not all trumps fault its the cultures fault because it takes a willing audience to successfully publicly sexually shame a woman
in fact this is shades of what trump did to hillary clinton in the stalking debate after which he announced that looking at her from behind he was not impressed
neither are we by you mr trump neither are we | 1 |
8,496 | Healthcare bill has been pulled: House Republican leadership aide | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A Republican bill to dismantle Obamacare has been pulled by U.S. House Republican leadership and will not be voted on as planned on Friday afternoon, a House Republican leadership aide said. | 1 |
8,497 | president obama makes massive call for illegals to vote with no repercussions this is sickening | breaking hillary just lost the black vote trump is going all the way to the white house hillary just lost the black vote to a black lives matter moms outrage and a pharmaceutical bros whims heres how
brett macdonald twitter facebook
new york today was not a great day for the clinton campaign recently leaked emails from within the clinton campaign have reached the ears of some prominent members of the black lives matter community members whom the emails were about they are particularly upset about a series of emails that seems how to best use the victims of gun violence while making sure those victims were black understandably some of the members have taken to speaking out against her campaign now in a word theyre pissed
erica garner the daughter of controversial man who died after being put in chokehold by a new york officer has been one of the most vocal critics im troubled by the revelation that you and this campaign actually discussed using eric garner why would you want to use my dad she tweeted
that was way earlier today she hasnt stopped since if you vote for her clinton by default you are endorsing her and whatever she does remember her hiding being negrossic that supported the crime bill if you vote for her by default you are endorsing her and whatever she does remember her hiding being nergos that supported the crime bill
officialerica garner es_snipes october
but heres the real kicker i dont care what blm activists endorse hillary they will continue more of the same they dont care about black lives and i got proof i dont care what blm activists endorse hillary they will continue more of the same they dont care about black lives and i got proof
officialerica garner es_snipes october
but thats not the only setback the clinton campaign saw today martin shkreli the controversial pharmabro and toptier troll had a very alarming announcement for the music community if trump wins he will release his previously unheard music from the beatles nirvana and mot importantly to the black community wutang if trump wins my entire unreleased music collection including unheard nirvana beatles and of course wutang comes out for free
martin shkreli martinshkreli october this article was written by brett macdonald if you enjoyed this story or did not hate mail can be left in the comments below and the author totally wont ignore it compliments or questions may be sent to tweetbrettmac on twitter vote for donald j trump together we will make america great again please like and share on facebook and twitter k shares | 0 |
8,498 | CITY OF CHICAGO Forcing Out Homeless Veterans Group To Make Space For Restaurants, Shops Around New “Obama Presidential Center” | There is no reason to believe the welfare of our veterans would be a priority for Obama after he leaves office, considering they were never a priority for the 8 years he occupied the White House.A charity group that helps homeless military veterans on Chicago s South Side says the city is trying to take control of the meager facility to make way for the restaurants, shops and other commercial venues that would complement the proposed Obama presidential library and museum.Group leaders said the RTW Veterans Center is the last privately-owned property on a stretch of S. King Boulevard near the proposed Washington Park site for the Barack Obama Presidential Center and that city building inspectors unexpectedly arrived last April to find an overwhelming 32 code violations at the facility. We don t appreciate being muscled out and put in the situation of having to negotiate from a position of despair, facility center Director Jah Ranu Menab told FoxNews.com on Saturday.Menab thinks the University of Chicago, which is working with the Obama Foundation to bring the presidential center to the South Side, is also part of an apparent effort to ultimately force the facility into receivership.The fate of the veterans facility which officials say serves more than 3,000 meals monthly may well be decided Tuesday, when officials return to Cook County Circuit Court for a hearing on the efforts to fix the building s problems.Menab admits that the facility is in disrepair, with some violations related to a fire hazard, rats nests and raw sewage flowing onto the basement floor.However, he says the situation, which includes fines of $16,000 daily, looks like an attempted land grab and that the prestigious university, where Obama was a law professor, exerts a tremendous amount of influence over the city and its future.The university strongly denies any involvement in the city s dealings with the center and its building and on Friday issued the following statement: The mission of providing support for veterans is extremely important, and numerous University of Chicago community members have volunteered their time at the RTW Veterans Center. The university is not engaged in discussions regarding the center s property and has no plans to purchase it. Veterans center co-founder Daniel Doc Habeel, a Vietnam War veteran, acknowledged Saturday that people associated with the university have indeed volunteered time. But he also expressed uncertainty about the university s involvement. The not-for-profit facility, which receives no government funding, cited in a press release Wednesday a history of building inspectors in other places forcing a worn-out building into receivership so a prospective developer is eventually able to acquire the property without having to negotiate. The city says the fines are not being enforced and that the case landed in court because numerous 311 calls led inspectors to visit the facility, where they learned about the severity of the problems, including a structurally unsafe porch. Via: FOX News | 0 |
8,499 | Iran's Rouhani says foreign interference in Syria must end, names no names | SOCHI, Russia (Reuters) - Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said on Wednesday that foreign interference in the conflict in Syria must end and foreign military presence in the country may only be acceptable if it is by the invitation of Syria s government. Rouhani, who stopped short of naming any specific nations, also told his Russian counterparts Vladimir Putin and Turkey s Tayyip Erdogan that now there was the need to uproot the last terrorist cells in Syria and the ground was prepared for political settlement. Rouhani was speaking at the three leaders meeting in the southern Russian city of Sochi. | 1 |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.